5. Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield. 6. For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. 7. 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: 8. 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: 9. 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.

Compare those verses with the lyrics from "All Along the Watchtower".

The songs in this mix either reference "All Along the Watchtower" or share its imagery. The lyrics to "All Along the Watchtower" are a conversation between the Joker and the Thief, and Wolfmother pays homage to Dylan with "Joker and the Thief". I can only guess at who those characters might be, one or both of which could be Dylan himself in some sort of anti-establishment message, or perhaps something else entirely. The Psycho Realm, Van Der Graaf Generator and Roy Harper also refer these characters. Cheap Trick plays with the line "there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke" in a song about suicide.

Most of the tracks in this mix make reference to Babylon, though they use the image in different ways. The reggae songs use the image of Babylon with a Rastafarian interpretation, comparing the experience of those of African descent in the Western Hemisphere with the Babylonian captivity of the Jews in the Old Testament. More about that in this article on the image of Babylon in reggae. Babylon often is used as an image of decadence or a place of sin, and many of the songs here use the image in that way.