Visions of Johanna (1966)

"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. 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 United Kingdom, listed it as the greatest song lyric ever written.

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. All of the alternate versions of the song have been officially released, but some only on a limited edition collectors set: many of them are November 1965 or later 1966 studio outtakes, and two others are live performances from his 1966 world tour.

Numerous artists have recorded cover versions of the song, including the Grateful Dead, Cat Power, Marianne Faithfull, Chris Smither, and Robyn Hitchcock.

Recording

Clinton Heylin places the writing of "Visions of Johanna" in the fall of 1965, when Dylan was living in the Chelsea Hotel with his pregnant wife Sara. Heylin notes that "in this déclassé hotel...the heat pipes still cough", referring to a line from the song. Greil Marcus reports that when the song was first released, "the story was that the song had been written during the great East Coast blackout of November 9, 1965."

Dylan first recorded this song, backed by The Hawks, in the CBS New York recording studio, on November 30, 1965, announcing his new composition with the words: "This is called 'Freeze Out'." Andy Gill notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension in which the verse tableaux are sketched...full of whispering and muttering." According to Marcus, Dylan introduced the song in live performances in 1966 with the words "Seems like a Freeze Out." In an early live performance in December 1965 in San Francisco, Dylan also suggested a possible title as "Alcatraz to the 9th Power Revisited".

Some of the New York recordings were uptempo and contain in the fifth verse the additional line "He examines the nightingale's code". Historian Sean Wilentz, for his book Dylan in America, listened closely to full studio tapes of the Blonde on Blonde sessions, and describes how Dylan guided the New York backing musicians through fourteen takes, trying to explain how he wanted "Visions of Johanna" played. At one point, Dylan says: "It's not hard rock. The only thing in it that's hard is Robbie." Analyzing the evolution of the song in the New York recording session, Wilentz writes that Dylan "quiets things down, inching closer to what will eventually appear on Blonde on Blonde—and it is still not right." Several complete takes of the song were recorded on November 30, including one with an uptempo rock beat, containing harpsichord accompaniment, and another with a march-like tempo, which was released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack in 2005.

"Visions of Johanna" fell into place when Dylan was persuaded by his producer, Bob Johnston, to move the recording sessions to Nashville, Tennessee. During his first day in the CBS Nashville studio, on February 14, 1966, the Blonde on Blonde version of the song was recorded. In an interview with Andy Gill, Al Kooper has said that he and guitarist Robbie Robertson became sensitive to the nuances of Dylan's vocal. Kooper added that "it's very important what Joe South's bass is doing in that"; Kooper described it as "this throbbing...rhythmically amazing bass part". Other backing musicians were Charlie McCoy, guitar, Wayne Moss, guitar, and Kenneth Buttrey on drums.

Live performances and studio outtakes

Dylan first performed "Visions of Johanna" in public on December 4, 1965, at the Berkeley Community Theatre. Present at this concert was Joan Baez, who believed the lyrics referred to her. She said, "He'd just written 'Visions of Johanna', which sounded very suspicious to me...he'd never performed it before and Neuwirth told him I was there that night and he performed it." Heylin suggests that if Dylan performed it for anyone that night it was Allen Ginsberg, who was also present. Heylin argues Dylan considered Ginsberg to be an important influence on his songwriting at this juncture, and was keen to showcase the song for the Beat poet.