All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)

I have been looking at song meanings discussions for months. It wasnt until today, when I made it to the Dead song sites, that I got insulted enough to realize how little people understand about the sixties and seventies music. It seems that people are trying to make Casey Jones about drugs OR a historical RR engineer. That misses the point. By miles. So many people argueing about Hippies and Drug use! WTF are you thinking? I am one of the "Over 50" Hippies and I would like to tell you how I understand these songs. I would like to let you know that I used to smoke pot about every chance I got. I have taken many Hallucinogens over the years, also, just like a LARGE number of people in my generation, and I SHOWER BEFORE I START TO STINK! These songs have blended the drug, historical, fantasy, and humanitarianism so beautifully, that they can never be separated. It would be like seperating the "left" and "right" sides of your brain surgically and expecting to survive and prosper in society using only one side. It would be like never using more than one finger to play a piano. Stop making it so "cut and dry" and "black and white". My generation used the drugs, sex, and rock n roll so that our brains could better integrate ALL of those ideas and think "outside the box". We partied and played a lot, but when we woke up the next morning we started dialing up our engineer peers and worked out ways to improve the electronic amps with them so that we could Have sex, drugs & rocknroll even better the next night. So: everybody is right! the songs were written by evolutionary geniuses who combined words to make a drug experience to night so awesome that, when you learned all the lyrics, you learned something about the past, and then used the lessons to make it a better world tomorrow. It couldnt have been as sucessful without all three components. 'Cause the rock and roll demanded synthesizers, the engineers gave them the FIRST PERSONAL COMPUTERS EVER INVENTED!!!! Are you starting to understand the importance of the hippies who loved, supported, and FINANCED the artists and engineers of of the world into the prosperous, modern societies of the future? Yeah, we may not be the brain surgeons and rocket scientists, but we play our part as the lovers and nurturors that keep the universe together. We are basically Duct Tape!!

this song seems to be about the caste system that exists in the world today.

My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me. Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield. For thus hath the LORD said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground. O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you. The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night? ... The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come. The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim. The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.