"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results. When the Blonde on Blonde recording sessions moved to Nashville in February 1966, Dylan attempted the composition again with different musicians, and decided to release this performance. Three alternative versions of the song have been officially released: one of them a November 1965 studio outtake, and two others live performances from his 1966 world tour.
Several critics have acclaimed "Visions of Johanna" as one of Dylan's highest achievements in writing, praising the allusiveness and subtlety of the language. Rolling Stone included "Visions of Johanna" on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1999, Sir Andrew Motion, poet laureate of the UK, listed it as his candidate for the greatest song lyric ever written. Numerous artists have recorded cover versions of the song, including The Grateful Dead, Marianne Faithfull and Robyn Hitchcock.
Read more about Visions Of Johanna: Recording, Live Performances and Recordings, Interpretation, Legacy, Cover Versions
Famous quotes containing the words visions of, visions and/or johanna:
“It was a very lonely spirit that looked out from under those shaggy brows and comprehended men without fully communicating with them, as if, in spite of all its genial efforts at comradeship, it dwelt apart, saw its visions of duty where no man looked on.... This strange child of the cabin kept company with invisible things, was born into no intimacy but that its own silently assembling and deploying thoughts.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Anyone with a real taste for solitude who indulges that taste encounters the dangers of any other drug-taker. The habit grows. You become an addict.... Absorbed in the visions of solitude, human beings are only interruptions. What voice can equal the voices of solitude? What sights equal the movement of a single day’s tide of light across the floor boards of one room? What drama be as continuously absorbing as the interior one?”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“You can’t walk on one leg.”
—Dutch saying encouraging someone to have another drink, trans. by Johanna C. Prins.