Poetry has got to be a very unusual art form. It actually deconstructs descriptive language into melodic expression. Which in reality, language was first melodic expression that metamorphed into descriptive definitions evolutionarily. It's interesting that some have claimed Dylan to not be a poet because he relies on his guitar as a crutch. If all along the watchtower is broken down musically it's a simple three cords played over and over and over. Virtually no music actually. So the poets that have said he isn't a poet aren't too aware of much, I would say there is too much confusion.
As consumers we have rendered poetry into the category of "experts" there are no such thing as expert poets just poets that we have expertized. That gives "scholars" what ever the hell they are, a place to comment, like wine tasters and plowmen.dylan blasts it all. It does not mean he understands he just blasts it all in this poem. I love the wildcat always out, always in the wilderness, John Muir definitely was a wildcat. Dylan has been fooled by the joker and the Thief, it's in his paintings.
I Love his poem, he is the muse. I have taken the final verse and placed a copy at the beginning to give that loop a clearer statement. Dylan never ventures past my art the watchtowers, my art constrains Dylan I build buildings. I am a carpenter, my art dominates his paintings. So sad so normal. It does not diminish Dylan it just makes me see him as being really really tapped in despite himself.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
There must be some way out of here" said the joker to the thief
"There's too much confusion", I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.
"No reason to get excited", the thief he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late".
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
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