Visions of Johanna

On a late-night trip
Through the shadows of New York
And Johanna's ghost.

There's little to say about "Visions of Johanna," which was the third song on the 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde." The song is no doubt a classic, but it's not a story like we understand a story to be. There's a hint of place, a loft apartment in New York City, most likely the Chelsea Hotel. It's cold outside, it's night time. There are people in the loft, such as Louise and her lover, and there's a nightwatchman nearby, as well as some ladies in a vacant lot and girls on the subway, a mysterious "little boy lost," the primitive wallflower, jelly-faced women and the peddler and the countess and the fiddler. They do stuff, they say stuff, and Dylan lades the obscure symbolism on board like he's getting ready to float the world's largest literary container ship. Taken separately, the parts are nearly nothing, but they add up to just about everything. Through it all, the singer falls prey to visions of a woman who's somewhere else.

Bread crumbs:
- Night plays tricks/trying to be quiet. Stranded, but we deny it.
- Country music softly playing on the radio.
- Girls chatter outside, the nightwatchman wonders if they're insane or he is.
- Great line, regarding Louise: "The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face. Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place."
- Little boy lost is a poseur.
- Infinity on trial in a museum. Great line again: "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."
- Wallflower freezes, jelly-faced women sneeze. Mustachioed one can't find knees.
- There's a mule wearing jewels and binoculars.
- Peddler/Countess play trivial games with each other under the pretense of a caring arrangement.
- Madonna's not here yet.
- Strange, but compelling line: 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."

Temporary Like Achilles

Achilles stands guard
Over my true love. I wish
I knew his weak spot.

Some women are hard to get, even if you're one of the most prominent rock n' roll stars on the planet. So Bob Dylan discovers and relates in the 1966 song "Temporary Like Achilles," which appeared on the "Blonde on Blonde" album.

1. He wants her loving, but she's so hard. He's standing on her window, where he has stood before, and wondering why she doesn't send him any regards. I'll refrain commenting on why he's looking at her "second door" and what that is.
2. He's beneath her ceiling, significantly kneeling, and trying to read her portrait. He can't because he's helpless "like a rich man's child." She sends someone out to prevent him from entering.
3. Is her heart made from lime, stone or solid rock?
4. He leans on her velvet door. (Again with the door!) He watches her scorpion and wonders what she is guarding.
5. She's gotten Achilles to guard her. Ask anyone in the Iliad why that might seem intimidating to Bob. And if you get a chance, tell him where the poor swordsman is vulnerable.

Tell Me Momma

What is wrong with her?
Something's on her mind, but she
Won't tell him what gives.

"Tell Me Momma," which debuted in 1966 as part of Bob Dylans touring act, was released commercially only in 1998 on volume four of the Bootleg Series, a recording of him and the Band in concert at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. It uses a number of old blues references to as a basis for the singer to ask his gal what's wrong with her.

- Ol' black Bascom (don't break no mirrors)
- Cold black water dog (make no tears)
- Don't you love me still? You have a steam drill and you want a kid to make it work for you like John Henry's hammer, so something is on your mind.
- Verse 2 has the weird stuff: "Spend some time on your January trips. You got tombstone moose up and your graveyard whips."
- Verse 3 contains an exhortation to "bone the editor," which I fully endorse. He's not reading, and his painted sled (Charles Foster Kane? Hearst?) is actually a b ed.
- She's close to the window ledge, now why would she want to jump? "For I know that you know that I know that you know, Something is tearing up your mind."

Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again

Bob's stuck in Mobile,
But it feels like Tennessee.
Happens all the time.

This is one of Bob Dylan's best songs, and is one of the times that his surreal, Fellini-style cast of characters all did him right. I know that some of his best-known songs are cascades of surrealism and symbolism and familiar characters from fiction and history doing unusual things for obscure reasons, but it all really works the way it should in this song. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and is mellow in a way that many of his other fever-dream songs are not. Maybe it was the Nashville studio musicians with whom he recorded the song for the 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde." For me, it is the highlight of the album. As for what it's all about? Don't ask me. I didn't even go beyond the chorus. That was enough. But the rest of the song is an obscurantist's delight. 

Samples of the song:
- The ragman won't tell us what's wrong as he draws circles up and down the block.
- The ladies are kind and give Bob tape.
- Shakespeare's wearing pointed shoes and bells in an alley where he's chatting up a French girl who says she knows Bob. She hasn't said anything else though it's unlikely that Bob can prove this because the mailbox was locked and someone stole the Post Office. (One of the absurdities that creeps into the song. The other is the brakeman in the next verse who smokes Bob's eyelid and punches his cigarette.)
- Mona says stay away from the brakemen because they drink your blood like wine. Bob says he wasn't aware of this, and that his only brakeman encounter was the one just mentioned.
- Grandpa died. It had to happen after he built the fire on Main Street and shot it with a gun.
- The senator is in town for his son's wedding. He has a gun too. Bob didn't get a ticket to the wedding and ended up under a trunk.
- Bob shows the preacher that they're not too different from one another. The preacher, curiously, is wearing 20 pounds of headlines stapled to his chest.
- He asked a rainman for a cure. He got Texas medicine and railroad gin. His outlook has been fairly dim ever since.
- He gets an invitation to watch her dance under the Panamanian moon in her honky-tonk lagoon. He protests that he's dating a debutante, but Ruthie suggests that perhaps she knows what Dylan really wants.
- Neon madmen climb on bricks lying on Grand Street. Bob wonders what it would take to get him out of having to do all this stuff again.

Shooting Star

You gotta let go
Of some folks to survive, but
You still will miss them.

"Shooting Star" is a fantastic, bittersweet ending to the always-interesting 1989 album "Oh Mercy." I suppose that you could read it on any level that you want, but the two most common ones seem to be:

1. Elegy for the one true love that got away, cast against a starry night.
2. A vision of the end of the world, in which, as the Blind Boys of Alabama said, "this may be the last time we every pray together. It may be the last time, I don't know."

The song goes for the gut, emotionally speaking, given its backdrop of the universe and eternity and the twinkling stars from thousands of light years away. What better than a quiet night lost in the stars and in the throes of gentle regret years after a failure to connect with someone, thinking about what you could have done differently? On a different level, I always considered the shooting star as a symbol for someone who was too high, wild and fast to catch, but who would occasionally land in your yard -- but who would prove impossible to keep. And even more than that, I always considered the shooting star to symbolize someone who was not just all these things, but who was too bright to survive in the dull world, and streaked across the sky until they burned out, usually at the cost of their life. I cannot possibly load so much baggage onto the song for your sake, but I do when I listen to it.

Meteor shower:
1. Shooting star/you. I saw you were trying to break into another world. I wonder if you did.
2. Shooting star/me. I wonder if I performed to your expectations or if I "missed the mark." (This refers to the quote about the fine line between God's patience and his wrath)
3. The fire truck from hell, with its engine and its bell. People are praying. Last temptation, last judgment, last Sermon on the Mount. The last broadcast.
4. Shooting star/us. Tomorrow is another day to remember that it's too late to tell you what I should have told you and what you needed to hear. "Seen a shooting star tonight slip away."

She's Your Lover Now

Guy's ex is trouble.
Why should he deal with her when
She has a new man?

I've seen some positive words written for "She's Your Lover Now," which Bob Dylan intended for release on "Blonde on Blonde" in 1966, but dropped from the album after he and his Nashville studio musicians spent multiple takes on the project without getting it right. I don't quite feel as positive about the song as others do. Songs like this sound like Dylan knew he had stumbled on a great idea with "Like a Rolling Stone," and he wanted to get that sound to work again. But what seems strong and fresh on "Rolling Stone" sounds a little more flabby and rambling here. The lyrics too sound more like a pastiche of Dylan than Dylan himself, relying on atmosphere, vinegar, and occasional symbols that don't quite do themselves justice. The song stayed in the can until 1991 when it was released on the first volume of the Bootleg Series.

The three verses of "She's Your Lover Now":
1. I was in pain because you left me. I destroyed everything I had, and that just made the pawnbroker laugh and the landlord cry. Why did you do it to me? And you think I should remember something that you want to tell me that you forgot to say? As for you, fella, I see you're with her now, so you deal with her if you're lovers now.
2. Now we're going to work out our problems like we were in court or in binding arbitration, I guess. Meanwhile, I never tried to change you, and you could always have just walked out if you wanted. What is it with forgive and forget? Why do you ask me to do that? And your guy here keeps asking me to pass him the ashtrays, and keeps saying everything twice. Why do you praise her every time she opens her mouth?
3. I never asked you to be faithful. You should have left if you wanted to leave. Some nonsense about castle stairs and trips to El Paso and San Francisco that he can't remember. Meanwhile, this new lover finds he has nothing to say so Bob goads him, and suggests that it won't be long until the woman in question is standing on the bar wearing a fish head and carrying a harpoon and wearing a fake beard, and that it's up to him to stop this transformation into Captain Ahab or whatever it is that she's trying to be.

Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

Sad and hollow-eyed.
If this is the lady you want,
Sing for her.

Some people consider "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" to be an epic, classic ode to love. And it is. That still doesn't change my view that it's an interminable song stuffed full of references to things and people that most people shouldn't be expected to get. Still, Dylan scholars have spent lots of time breaking this one down. It was released on "Blonde on Blonde" in 1966. It is commonly seen as a wedding song of sorts for his then-wife Sara. The song stretches over 11 minutes and 22 seconds, and is divided into five verses. Here are some useless attempts to flick at them. I think, by the way, that the effect is supposed to be cumulative: she's a detailed portrait of an ethereal woman with her own unknown motives and desires, and is misunderstood by all who try to coopt her into supporting their various causes. I can only guess that Bob is supposed to be one more of these suitors, but one who thinks he might have an advantage.

What she's like, what she has:
- Mercury mouth 
- Eyes like smoke
- Prayers like rhymes
- Silver cross
- Voice like chimes
- Well-protected pockets
- Streetcar visions that she places on the grass
- Silky flesh
- Glassy face
- Sheets like metal (Sara's father, I see on Wikipedia, was a scrap-metal dealer in Wilmington, Delaware)
- Belt like lace
- Incomplete card deck (50 cards, no jack and no ace)
- Basement clothes
- Hollow face
- Moonlight swims in her eyes
- Gypsy hymns
- Childhood flames
- Midnight rug
- Spanish manners
- Mother's drugs
- Cowboy mouth
- Curflew plugs
- Sheet-metal memories of Cannery Row
- Ex-husband who was in the publishing business
- On a thief's parole
- Saintlike face
- Ghost-like soul

Other people who show up in the song:
- A sad-eyed prophet
- The kings of Tyrus who wait in line for a geranium kiss, though they don't JUST want to kiss her.
- Farmers and businessmen who show her the dead angels that they used to hide, though it's hard to undertand why they picked her to sympathize with them.
- The child of a hoodlum in her arms
- The ex-husband in publishing

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

Don't feel so alone --

You cannot escape stoning.

It's a fact of life.

The song that brought us the famous phrase "Everybody must get stoned" is so clearly not a drug song that it has given Bob Dylan plenty of room to grouse about never having written a drug song, given how much people call it a drug song. But you can't write a song with that line in every verse and give it a brass marching band arrangement without knowing how people are going to react to the otherwise cryptic lyrics. Anyway, about the song: to me, I read it as stoning like the Bible or Shirley Jackson, but also as a more metaphorical stoning, an idea that you're going to be compelled by the rest of society to do what they do whether you like it or not, and there's no way you can escape from so many people, especially when they're against you doing the thing that you want to do.

Regarding stoning and things you might do that will result in stoning (a partial list):

- Trying to be good

- Hearing them say it once, and then holding up their promise

- Trying to go home

- Being at home

- Walking down the street

- Trying to keep your seat

- Walking

- Approaching your door

- Eating breakfast

- Being young

- Working

- Just being done being stoned the first time

- Playing guitar

- Driving your car

- Walking alone

- Being brave

- Being dead

Pledging My Time

Pay attention, girl.
Bob has time for you. It's you
He's not sure about.

I like the description of "Blonde on Blonde" that Andy Gill gave the album, one that I know about because of my repeated perusing of Wikipedia entries about Bob Dylan: "humid, oppressive atmosphere." He characterizes most of the album this way apart from the opening song "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35." Song two is "Pledging My Time," which was released as well on a single with the preceding song. It's a Chicago blues-style song, I'm told, though I don't know quite what that means other than that it's loud and electric. It's one of the first songs that Dylan recorded in Nashville in 1966, and it features the core of the band that would make the album so beloved, along with keyboardist Al Kooper and guitar player Robbie Robertson who joined him from New York. The song sounds like a take-off on the Robert Johnson blues song "Come on in My Kitchen," and I don't say that just because the Wikipedia entry says so. There are some direct references to the song in the lyrics, at least as far as I can tell. As for the haiku, I took a more stern approach than the song takes, but I felt that it was worth it to take a look at the song from a different angle.

Verses:
1. Got a headache all day and night, though I feel all right. "I'm pledging my time to you, hopin' you'll come through too."
2. Hobo steals girlfriend, then steals me too. Pledging my time, etc.
3. Baby come with me. Though our success is not guaranteed, you'll be the first to know in the event of failure. Which seems possible. Pledging my time etc.
4. Stuffy room. Everybody gone. We're still here, but you'll have to go first before I do. Pledging my time etc.
5. Somebody needs an ambulance, and they got one, though whatever happened was an accident. Pledging my time etc.

One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)

There are eight million
Girls in the Naked City.
This was one of them.

This is another one of Bob Dylan's breakup songs, this one from the dyspeptic but majestic 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde." I could have given you a summary or interpretation of the lyrics, but why bother with that when Jules Dassin already did it when he created "Naked City"?

Anyway, here are the lyrics. You'll see from them why the haiku makes sense:

I didn’t mean to treat you so bad
You shouldn’t take it so personal
I didn’t mean to make you so sad
You just happened to be there, that’s all
When I saw you say “goodbye” to your friend and smile
I thought that it was well understood
That you’d be comin’ back in a little while
I didn’t know that you were sayin’ “goodbye” for good

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn’t see what you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid
I couldn’t see how you could know me
But you said you knew me and I believed you did
When you whispered in my ear
And asked me if I was leavin’ with you or her
I didn’t realize just what I did hear
I didn’t realize how young you were

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

I couldn’t see when it started snowin’
Your voice was all that I heard
I couldn’t see where we were goin’
But you said you knew an’ I took your word
And then you told me later, as I apologized
That you were just kiddin’ me, you weren’t really from the farm
An’ I told you, as you clawed out my eyes
That I never really meant to do you any harm

But, sooner or later, one of us must know
You just did what you’re supposed to do
Sooner or later, one of us must know
That I really did try to get close to you

Obviously 5 Believers

Please don't let me down.
I'm sad despite my jugglers
And five believers.

This is a rock and roll blues song off the 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde." There are a few throwaway lines, but the general takeaway is one line he sings twice:

"Yes, I could make it without you
If I just did not feel so all alone"

Here's the breakdown of the rest of the song:

1. Early in the morning, he's calling you to come home. He could make it without you, but it would make him lonely.
2. He won't let you down if you don't let him down. He WOULD let you down if you did let him down, but all the same, it would be better if you didn't.
3. His black dog is barking in the hard. He could translate the dog's remarks, but it's too much effort.
4. Your mother is crying while working. He could translate your mother's remarks, but he doesn't speak in her mother tongue.
5. Fifteen jugglers and five believers are dressed like men. Your mother appears concerned about them, but she shouldn't be because they are his friends.

The title seems like one of those artistic attempts to cast an oblique view on the song by referring to something that's only glancingly significant to it, sort of like authors who write books about things like the Russian Revolution or war or a love affair, and give them titles like, "The Proper Way to Clean Taffetta" or "I Am Curious (Yellow)." It also fits with Dylan's repeated attempts to use adverbs in his song titles from this time: "Positively 4th Street," "Absolutely Sweet Marie," "Queen Jane Approximately," "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," and so on.

Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)

You say you love me,
But you don't. You love him,
Though you say you don't.

"Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)" is a breakup song off the album "Blonde on Blonde" from 1966. Musically, it's well known for its distinctive trombone flourish between verses. Among musicians, it's well known because the guy who played the trombone played the bass at the same time as he blew on the horn. 

1. You say you love and and think of me: you might be wrong.
2. You want to hold me? Not that strong.
3. I can't beg you anymore.
4. Letting you go, and I'll go after you, and we'll see who wins.
5. You say you disturb me and don't disturb me. Of course, you're also a liar.
6. You say you're shakin'/achin', but you try too hard.
7. I'm through with you.
8. You say you're sorry for telling stories that I think are true.
9. One true story is the one you tell me about having another lover.
10. That's it for you and me.

Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat

That's a nice new hat.
But I wish you would not let
Your lovers wear it.

"Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" is a rollicking blues number that provides the slightest bit of comic relief on the otherwise broad and rangy but consistently downbeat masterpiece album "Blonde on Blonde," from 1966. The pill-box style is classy, the leopard-skin is not. The lady in question wears the hat and charms her admirer, all while behaving poorly toward him.

1. You have a new leopard-skin pill-box hat. How does your head feel in it?
2. You look pretty in it. I want to jump on it. It's expensive. It balances awkwardly on you - "just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine."
3. We should go watch the sun rise. I'll wear my belt on my head. You wear the hat.
4. The doctor told me I shouldn't see you because it's bad for my health. I went anyway. I found him there. You were cheating on me with him, and the bugger was wearing your hat.
5. You have a new boyfriend. I saw you and he doing it in the garage because you forgot to shut the door. You think he wants you for your money, but I know that he wants you because of the hat.

Just Like a Woman

How does she take, fake
Love and ache? Like a woman.
But see how she breaks.

One of Dylan's big hits, "Just Like a Woman" arrived on the 1966 album "Blonde on Blonde." Dylan has received praise for writing a perfect, bittersweet pop song, and has drawn criticism for writing a song that some people find condescending and misogynistic. All I know is that I've never met a woman who knew this song and didn't know all the words from singing along to it.

1. No pain, all rain. Baby's got new clothes, but no more ribbons or bows. She takes, makes love and aches like a woman, but breaks like a little girl.
2. Side story: Queen Mary. Bob goes to visit her. Meanwhile, Baby can't be blessed until she discovers that she's like everyone else with her various drug problems and jewelry. She takes, makes love and aches one way, but breaks another way.
3. Bob's in the rain, he's dying of thirst, he seeks comfort from the woman in question, but something between them didn't work out.
4. Next time we meet, don't let anybody know about the time when you had the advantage over me. And on a related note, you fake, make love and ache like a woman. But you break like a little girl.

I Want You

A bunch of symbols
Waste their time symbolizing
While I just want you.

I used to love "I Want You," a short, jaunty and sweet song that springs up like a flower amid the bitter earth and pavement of the "Blonde on Blonde" album from 1966. The more I listen to it, the more I realize that it's a great song full of nonsense. Here's a list of the other characters you'll find in this ensemble performance:

- Guilty undertaker (sighing)
- Lonesome organ grinder (crying)
- Silver saxophones
- Cracked bells
- Washed-out horns
- Drunken politician (leaping into the street)
- Weeping mothers
- Sleeping saviors
- Fathers without true love
- Daughters who don't like Bob because he doesn't think about true love
- the Queen of Spades
- the Chambermaid
- Dancing child with Chinese suit and flute

Here's a video with lots of people in old movies kissing:

I'll Keep It With Mine

You have many fans
Eager to earn your favors.
Ignore them, choose me.

"I'll Keep It With Mine" saw its first release on a Judy Collins single in 1965. I first heard it on Nico's debut solo album in 1967. She recorded the song after her now legendary appearance on the first Velvet Underground record, and songs like this were intended to cast her as a Germanic folk chanteuse. It worked, sort of, though nobody could keep Nico on the rails, and by the time she recorded her next album, "The Marble Index," she was charting a course for waters that were too dark for most other musicians to follow. 

Dylan wrote the song in 1964 as a demo for the Witmark company. You can find that version on the ninth volume of the Bootleg Series. He also tried recording it for the 1965 album "Bringing It Back Home." That version is available on the "Biograph" box set from 1985. A version for the "Blonde on Blonde" album in 1966 appeared on volume 1 of the Bootleg series in 1991. There are other versions too, but apparently don't circulate even among obsessives. I could be wrong about this, as I have found one instrumental version from 1966, pasted below.

As for the song, which is Bob lecturing a woman on what's good for her:
- She searches for what's not lost.
- He notes people will help her and be kind, but he might be able to save her some time by being her main man.
- He might seem odd to you because he loves you for what you're not.
- Again, people MIGHT try to help you, but he's a better bet for the job.
- Separately, there's a train leaving at 10:30, but it will be back tomorrow. The conductor's sick of the reputation.

4th Time Around

The grass doesn't grow
Under Bob's feet. One girl down,
He finds another.

Another in the "peevish lovers" edition of the Dylan catalogue, "4th Time Around" is widely seen as a response or a parody or an affectionate love tap in return for John Lennon's song "Norwegian Wood," itself a fairly clear take on a Dylan song. The song appears on the "Blonde on Blonde" album from 1966, and finds the singer taking selfish positions against his lovers even as he knows that it pisses them off.

Verse 1:
She says he's a liar and they indulge in a staring contest. He's had enough, she reminds him that you don't get a free lunch in this universe. The implication is that she's the lunch.

Verse 2:
He questions the free lunch philosophy. She says, "don't get cute." He hands her a stick of gum, presumably as payment. You can see at this point that the conversation probably won't improve.

Verse 3:
It doesn't. The gum doesn't impress her so she tosses him onto the street. He forgot his shirt so he asks for it. While she gets it, he contemplates a picture of "you," whom I've always taken to be the second woman in the song.

Verse 4:
The picture of "you" leans against the first woman's bottle of Jamaican rum. He asks for some, she says no. He says he doesn't understand her because of the gum in her mouth. She finds this extremely upsetting, and he seems to feel that he has scored points. He checks out her drawers, takes something from it, and then...

Verse 5:
He heads over to see "you." He and the second woman embark on an affair, only to have him chastise her for leaning too heavily on him when he never did anything of the sort.

Absolutely Sweet Marie

Marie vanishes,
Leaves Bob beating his trumpet
In a traffic jam.

"Absolutely Sweet Marie" is another one of those up-tempo songs on "Blonde on Blonde" that turns out to be a real bummer. The singer suffered through traffic jams, illness, hatred, a prison sentences, the delivery of half-a-dozen horses, a drunk Iranian guy and other bad company as well as one omniscient riverboat captain, only to discover that Marie stood him up. I know that the song contains the famous line, "To live outside the law you must be honest," as well as the images of the "yellow railroad" and the handing out of addresses to "bad company," but what sticks with me are what sound to me like references to an unresolved hard-on. He's beating on his trumpet and he has a fever in his pocket. I understand and I sympathize. Meanwhile, here is Dylan playing the song in concert in Dubuque with stage divers and dancers apparently selected at random from nearby barns. Dylan looks surprisingly unperturbed.

Absolutely Sweet Marie

A mean, wicked girl
Sports with poor Bob Dylan.
Bob! When will you learn?

Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

You all must smoke pot
No matter what you do. Bob
takes his own advice.