Interpreting "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"

It appears I'm the first one to try it. Oh goody.
I got the last stanza. I think that Dylan's line, "I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'" means that he is trying to spread the word of impending disaster before it strikes. His examples of where he is going to tell people the news illustrate why bad things are going to start happening. He's headed for the "depths of the deepest black forest", or the center of the confusion. Obviously, what we now consider and trust to be safe isn't, since water is poisoned and the homes are near prisons. We never know exactly what or who our enemies are since "the executioner's face is always well hidden". Dylan knows that resistance is futile, yet he'll "stand on the ocean until" he starts sinking. He will consider carefully what he will say to make sure he is right before he begins singing. However, "a hard rain's a-gonna fall", no matter what he--or we--do. Trouble is coming, we just get a warning about it.

Interpreting Dylan

To me with the wind "howling" and the wildcat "growling" doesn't produce a positive image to me, so i think the two riders are approaching with sinister intentions. Plus i think that the joker and theif talking are really plotting something. What that it im not sure, but if i had to interpret it i'd say the joker and the theif are the two horseman riding up to the watchtower, to change something, perhaps this is dylan's "transformation" as was noted in class.

my interpretation of dylan (finally)

I think the ending isn't as unclear as was said in class Monday; something to the extent "we don't know the nature of the riders" was said, but I think the lyrics make it perfectly clear. The joker and thief know their time is almost up when the joker says the hour is getting late. And with the wildcat growl and wind howling as the riders approach, that's a sign of danger and bad things to come in any story.

I also think Dylan saw into the future with my account problems, and wrote all along the watchtower about me having to fight with Google just to post this darn thing. I was so confused about why Google hates me.

interpreting dylan

I agree with many of the points raised in class. If I had to connect the dots for this song, I would say that the role reversals for both the joker and the thief are evident. However, I think that they are literally trapped behind the watchtowers, unable to leave unless the princes see fit to let them. The women and servants are mentioned to reinforce the inequality and they are not allowed to leave either. This is another reason why the joker laments about needing a way out of there.
I felt that the growling wildcat and the howling wind were very foreboding and so I picture the two riders as being dressed in all black with their capes flying in said wind. I see them as death coming for the thief and the joker, which ultimately is the only way out of here. The thief senses this which is why he says," the hour is getting late." He knows better than to try to make sense out of life and those who do not know how to live it, for life is much too short.
My last blog deleted when I tried to post it so this had better work!

And then...

The first verse, the one the joker says, reflects the joker's feelings of how people view him. I believe that he feels people don't respect him because his profession is playing the fool. He is not the fool in real life, and can see problems and the meaning of life that others cannot see because they are narrow minded. The second verse, with the thief speaking, is about not worrying about what everyone else feels. The rest of the world (not these two) is playing the fool and cannot see what is clearly there. The thief feels that the world should be left in its ignorance because they will not accept what these two see. The thief I feel is knowledgeable about everything and knows everything that is going on because people look down on him and ignore him when he is walking the streets as a shady character.

As they approach the city, they are embarking on a new adventure, a new life within the judgemental stigma that follows them everywhere. This time though, they will not let it affect them, they will not be pushed down into a category and ignored. The thief, being the more wise character, will take the lead. They will spark change in the new city into which they are coming. If the change is not welcome, or they are thrown out of the city, they will travel on, determined to find one place that will accept them as they are, without putting them into categories.

This song is about finding your place in the world, not relying on what others think of you and how you are placed in a category. You must stop worrying about what others think because they cannot see the world from your point of view. Only you alone can stand up for what you believe in because no one else believes in exactly the same thing.

Finishing the Story

Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" is an interpretation of the hypocracy among the political extremes of American society colliding in the late 1960's. The characters of the Joker and the Thief each represent one of these aspects. The Joker represents the counterculture, not taking life seriously and seeing life as just a game. The Thief embodies the corparate conservatives, taking and taking from the working and middle class. In the first two verses of the song, the characters reveal themselves to act opposite of their titles. This commentary reflects Dylan's view that the Counterculture is just as selfish and greedy, if not more so, as the conservatives. At the same time, the conservatives show that they just don't care, and see their impending doom, the Riders, as an opportunity to shed the acts and to be honest for once in their lives.

The final verse is the beginning of the reckoning. The princes, the American upper class, watches while the lessers of society, the women and barefoot servants, are passing through. The two riders, being Woe and Dispair, come to bring warning and to prepare the society as the watchtower collapses upon itself...