Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna (Paris, France 1966)

[mikecooke]

Name me someone who’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him. One of the many great lines in the greatest song of all time.

I heard this song when I was 17 and I was blown away. I’m 51 now and it screams at me louder than ever.

[johnswift]

This song was my introduction to Dylan burning a giant fatty with John Barling up in his loft. That was 29 years ago and I'm still hooked on Dylan. Thank you Johnny. You knew how awesome Dylan was when we were only 19.

[zeitgeistiw]

"The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face" - best line.

[dylang.]

Bob, sei grande, poeta musicista inimitabile

[kikenobel]

Un año después de tu comentario..siento lo mismo.. desde chile.. TALCA.. CUREPTO... HUELON.. un gran abrazo para MIKE.. yo tenía 19 años, , y hoy con 62.. siento igual mi pasión por Bob.. no hay remedio.. para mi y para el coronavirus.. SALUDOS

[thesongtowoody]

this song and performance is its like a sonic lyrical performance rembrandt painting!

[naobieeyendrembam]

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn
Inside the museums, infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeez, I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel
The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.

[mikemoskowitz]

Can you imagine seeing this live? I’d be like is this the 2nd coming? It’s too good. Thanks for posting.

[k.b.]

Saw Dylan twice...once with mi hija, Johanna (a family name). Saw his son with mi hija, too.

[jesuisravi]

I love these early Dylan songs like crazy. Always have. Why is that? I haven't got a clue what they mean, but it makes no difference; they speak to me like nothing else.

[MsHelord]

_Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles..._ LOL Excellent unplugged version...! very pronounced and very funny... LMAO...! DYLAN, you are BOBNESS! BOBNESS YOU ARE GREAT! :))))

[jamesfreeman]

Play it at x2 speed and you have Dylan in 2019

[jaconwood]

And while he has us enthralled..the 'thief' sneaks away with our hearts..he will never return was he's stolen..so just live with it...

[colingrundy]

Hi heard this song when I was seventeen I am sixty nine now genius 😊

[peggibaillie]

I see the writer in a bleak room during a blackout, in the company of his pregnant girlfriend who now holds all the cards. His mind is tormented by another lover. Without passion, he listens to music, watches the candle flame flicker across "Louise’s" face and realises love isn't as free as the zeitgeist would have him believe. "Louise" looks vulnerable by candlelight and he’s aware of her sacrifice for him, yet his mind is monopolized by thoughts of what might have been – with "Johanna"
Sleepless, he stands by the window observing the activities in the neighbourhood as fumbling, stumbling people try to navigate their way home. He hears the mutterings of a caretaker, bemused at the antics as locals attempt to make light of the dark.
The writer relives private jokes and discussions he once shared with "Johanna". HIs hitherto pitiless observations of neighbourhood eccentrics no longer amuse him.
Having discovered that her lover’s relationship with "Louise" has become so intertwined, "Johanna" has frozen him out and retreated to her apartment, where her possessive frenemy, , a con-artist-cum-gatekeeper delights in mocking the fool’s forfeiture.
Perhaps in an attempt to stay close, "Johanna" begins dating the writer's less attractive gofer whose appointments are keenly anticipated by the confined "Louise".
"Madonna", another of the writer's overlapping relationships is probably entertaining others by candlelight.
For me, this is the story of a power cut!

[maryrice]

Was there some question as to whether or not he deserved the Nobel Prize in Literature? I, for one, am nourished by his 'Voice'.

[richardbogartburke]

"For some reason or another, I thought that it was" Jules Verne's binoculars" and "primitive wallflower frieze", instead of " freeze" but that's just what I heard in my mind.

[jerrygibson]

I guess i don't understand poetry 😳