Visions of Johanna

On the cover of the 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan is seen in an extremely blurred photo, wrapped up in a winter coat and scarf, possibly scowling (we can't tell for sure). It is perhaps a signal -- sent from Dylan -- that previous impressions and preconceptions of the songwriter may, in fact, be inaccurate. He seems to ask, "You think you have a clear picture of who I am?" On Blonde on Blonde, Dylan continues to throw off the shackles that he felt the folk community had used to constrain him as the traditionalist protest poet. He ventures deeper into electric blues, pop, and folk-rock music forms and more oblique lyrics. Dylan's "Visions of Johanna" is an example of his folk-rock, though other versions featuring just the Spartan accompaniment of Dylan alone on acoustic guitar offer a more traditional folk-balladeer view of the tune. There also exists an unreleased upbeat blues-rock version called "Freeze Out," which is more along the lines of his more rocking songs "Maggie's Farm" and "From a Buick 6." A sprawling (7:27) epic with no traditional pop chorus, "Visions of Johanna" is a view of an unattainable woman set against the backdrop of a mostly nocturnal downtown Manhattan. The lyrics are impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness, druggy, and surreal. The images are fleeting. The singer seems trapped with "Louise" while he desires and seems to chase the allusive Johanna. The journey takes Dylan through lofts, the D train, a museum, empty lots, and through snippets of overheard conversation, as well as a discussion with some "little boy lost," who "takes himself so seriously," and who is "so useless and all/muttering small talk at the wall" (this could possibly be a swipe at a critic). Meanwhile, through all the mundane and absurd, "these visions of Johanna" are haunting the singer. The simple, folky melody and thought of Johanna seem to keep the singer grounded in the face of a slipping reality.