The "joker" here ["All Along the Watchtower" ] is the older [Bob] Dylan himself, whining about exploitation, and the thief's rejoinder re-contextualizes the earlier critique into the religious frames that would become more prominent as time went on.

There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.

If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs had taught me that.

People are crazy and times are strange ... I used to care but things have changed

Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.

I don't really have a retirement plan.

The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handle