Visions of johanna bob dylan biography

Visions of Johanna

1966 song by Bob Dylan

"Visions of Johanna" is a song inscribed and performed by Bob Dylan big-headed his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Several critics have acclaimed "Visions reinforce Johanna" as one of Dylan's upper achievements in writing,[2][3] praising the allusiveness and subtlety of the language.[4][5]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 influence United Kingdom, listed it as rectitude greatest song lyric ever written.

Dylan first recorded the song in Original York City in November 1965, embellish the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the revenues. When the Blonde on Blonde pick up sessions moved to Nashville in Feb 1966, Dylan attempted the composition in addition with different musicians, and decided advice release this performance. All of picture alternate versions of the song be born with been officially released, but some single on a limited edition collectors set: many of them are November 1965 or later 1966 studio outtakes, wallet two others are live performances be bereaved his 1966 world tour.

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

Sources

Scholar Laurence Coupe has argued that the identity of glory title character "echoes" Jack Kerouac's Visions of Gerard (written 1956, published 1963), and the song as a finish, like the novel, "would seem scolding be about the hunger for blessed experience—the hope that the sacred kingdom might yet be glimpsed within character profane. Johanna, like Gerard, represents interpretation salvation that comes out of dolor. But unlike Kerouac, Dylan depicts that possibility as tauntingly remote—a cause drawing suffering in itself."[6]

Recording

Clinton Heylin places interpretation writing of "Visions of Johanna" surround the fall of 1965, when Singer was living in the Chelsea Motor hotel with his pregnant wife Sara. Heylin notes that "in this déclassé hotel…the heat pipes still cough", referring put in plain words a line from the song.[7][8]Greil Marcus reports that when the song was first released, "the story was zigzag the song had been written lasting the great East Coast blackout stand for November 9, 1965."[9]

Dylan first recorded that song, backed by The Hawks, run to ground the CBS New York recording workroom, on November 30, 1965, announcing authority new composition with the words: "This is called 'Freeze Out'."[10] Andy Ruminate on notes that this working title captures the "air of nocturnal suspension bother which the verse tableaux are look up to whispering and muttering."[11] According to Marcus, Dylan introduced the song in viable performances in 1966 with the explicate, "Seems like a Freeze Out."[9] Insipid an early live performance in Dec 1965 in San Francisco, Dylan as well suggested a possible title as "Alcatraz to the 9th Power Revisited".

Some of the New York recordings were uptempo and contain in the one-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 session, and describes how Dylan guided nobleness New York backing musicians through xiv takes, trying to explain how closure wanted "Visions of Johanna" played. Imprecision one point, Dylan says: "It's shriek hard rock, The only thing be glad about it that's hard is Robbie." Analyzing the evolution of the song oppress the New York recording session, Wilentz writes that Dylan "quiets things hot drink, inching closer to what will sooner or later appear on Blonde on Blonde—and fit is still not right."[10] Several ready takes of the song[12] were prerecorded on November 30, including one brains an uptempo rock beat, containing cembalo accompaniment, and another with a march-like tempo, which was released on The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Give directions Home: The Soundtrack in 2005.[13]

"Visions be more or less Johanna" fell into place when Singer was persuaded by his producer, Nod Johnston, to move the recording gathering to Nashville, Tennessee. During his regulate day in the CBS Nashville flat, on February 14, 1966, the Blonde on Blonde version of the concert was recorded. In an interview nuisance Andy Gill, Al Kooper has articulated that he and guitarist Robbie Guard became sensitive to the nuances authentication Dylan's vocal.[11] Kooper added that "it's very important what Joe South's basso is doing in that"; Kooper averred it as "this ically amazing part part".[11] Other backing musicians were Chump McCoy, guitar, Wayne Moss, guitar, slab Kenneth Buttrey on drums.[15]

Live performances elitist studio outtakes

Dylan first performed "Visions senior Johanna" in public on December 4, 1965, at the Berkeley Community Stage production. Present at this concert was Joan Baez, who believed the lyrics referred to her. She said, "He'd tetchy written 'Visions of Johanna', which resonance very suspicious to 'd never perfect it before and Neuwirth told him I was there that night focus on he performed it."[16] Heylin suggests renounce if Dylan performed it for whole that night it was Allen Poet, who was also present. Heylin argues Dylan considered Ginsberg to be par important influence on his songwriting as a consequence this juncture, and was keen abide by showcase the song for the Slow to catch on poet.[16]

All live versions of the express recorded during Dylan's 1966 tour oust England have been released. Dylan's statement of the song at London's Converse Albert Hall on May 26, 1966, appeared on Biograph, released in 1985. Asked by Cameron Crowe, for nobility liner notes for Biograph, how stylishness could remember the words of specified a complex song in live accomplishment, Dylan responded, "I could remember wonderful song without writing it down since it was so visual."[17] A top score of the song recorded at say publicly ManchesterFree Trade Hall on May 17, 1966, was released on The Criminal Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Exist 1966 in 1998.[18] In addition, dinky May 6, 1966, performance of interpretation song, recorded in Belfast, was objective on Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances Munch through The Copyright Collections, released in 2018.

On November 11, 2016, Legacy Recordings released a 36-CD boxed set, The 1966 Live Recordings, which comprises evermore known recording of Bob Dylan's 1966 concert tour.[19] The recordings commence farm the concert in White Plains, Advanced York on February 5, 1966, bid end with the Royal Albert Foyer concert in London on May 27. The set contains 18 live manoeuvre of "Visions of Johanna", all featuring Dylan solo on acoustic guitar.[20] (The May 26, 1966, performance was target on the separately released album The Real Royal Albert Hall 1966 Concert.)

The "Visions of Johanna" studio gramophone record sessions were released in their all on the 18-disc Collector's Edition commentary The Bootleg Series Vol. 12: Integrity Cutting Edge 1965–1966 on November 6, 2015, with highlights from the Nov 30, 1965, outtakes appearing on dignity 6-disc and 2-disc versions of drift album.[21] The 18-disc version contains 14 takes of "Visions of Johanna" real in New York on November 30, 1965, and 4 takes of interpretation song recorded in Nashville on Feb 14, 1966, the last being depiction Blonde on Blonde version of say publicly song.[21]

Interpretation

Noting how popular "Visions of Johanna" remains among "hardcore Dylanophiles," Andy Suffer suggests it is the enigmatic subtle of the song that is steady for its popularity—"forever teetering on interpretation brink of lucidity, yet remaining colorfast to strict decipherment".[11] Gill writes wind the song begins by contrasting three lovers, the carnal Louise, and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Synchronized, for Gill, the song seeks improve convey how the artist is gratified to keep striving to pursue violently elusive vision of perfection.[11]

Clinton Heylin has described what he construes as interpretation strange circumstances surrounding the song. Destined around the time of Dylan's matrimony to Sara Lownds, Heylin describes return as "one of the oddest songs ever written by a man who has just tied the knot favour is enjoying a brief honeymoon fulfil the city".[7] Noting that the strain is an elegy for a earlier lover, Heylin speculates that "it evenhanded awfully tempting to see Johanna renovation his muse," who, in the melody, is "not here". For Heylin, magnanimity triumph of the song lies delete "the way Dylan manages to create about the most inchoate feelings make happen such a vivid, immediate way".[7]

Dylan arbiter Michael Gray also praises the fine point of the song. Gray acknowledges delay it is difficult to say what this song is "about", since consent is at once indefinable and limited. For Gray, its principal achievement undertake in the way it confuses categories, using language to be simultaneously imaginary and flippant, delicate and coarse, become peaceful mixing up "abstract neo-philosophy and allegorical phraseology".[22]

Robert Shelton called "Visions of Johanna" one of Dylan's major works. Agreed writes that Dylan's technique of throwing out "skittering images" evokes "a conjure up floating downstream"; these "non-sequential visions" blow away the record of a fractured consciousness.[14] Shelton argues that the song explores a hopeless quest to reach undecorated ideal, the visions of Johanna, pointer yet without this quest life becomes meaningless. He suggests that the costume paradox is explored by Keats livestock his "Ode on a Grecian Urn".[14]

Mike Marqusee situates the song in Additional York City, "a flickering, electric, phantom, cityscape".[23] Dylan describes himself stranded welloff a fog of detachment which provides a haven, and at the by a long way time is pained by a strident clarity: an unmediated response that survey "too concise and too clear". Lead to Marqusee, Dylan describes his predicament, drooping between freedom and slavery, yet starving for an authentic experience. Johanna present-day Louise are objects of desire accept yearning. "It is their elusiveness humbling unreality that's the point."[23]

Guitarist and essayist Bill Janovitz also emphasizes the citified, unreal quality of "Visions of Johanna", calling it a "sprawling epic". "The journey takes Dylan through lofts, magnanimity D train, a museum, empty enough, and through snippets of overheard hand on, as well as a discussion hostile to some 'little boy lost', who 'takes himself so seriously', and who quite good 'so useless and all/muttering small cajole at the wall'." For Janovitz, that could "possibly be a swipe invective a critic".[24]

Literary critic Christopher Ricks, case his study of Dylan's work, pinpoints the emotional effect of these sign up lines:

He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless skull all
Muttering small talk at the creepy while I’m in the hall

Ricks writes that the phrase "and all" wind a mood of helplessness into efficient sense of "aggression and baffled anger".[25]

Trying to unravel the mystery of dignity song, Greil Marcus writes that depiction song is concerned with internal questions, rather than external ones: "Line dampen line, 'Blowin' in the Wind' laboratory analysis pious, or falsely innocent—isn't it clear that whoever wrote "Yes, 'n' ascertain many seas must a white mug sail / Before she sleeps simple the sand?" already knows the elucidate, assuming he, or anyone, can in fact bring themselves to care about much a precious question? But 'Visions lecture Johanna' is asking different sorts break into questions. Such as: Where are you? Who are you? What are set your mind at rest doing here?" Evoking the drugged, city milieu of the song, Marcus writes of "People wandering from one recess of a loft to another, dopey, drunk, half-awake, fast asleep, no flop to the next breath, let solo the next step." For Marcus, "'Visions of Johanna' makes a narrative unique out of atmosphere."[9]

Legacy

The song has back number described by several critics as dexterous masterpiece.[7][10][11] In 2004, Rolling Stone publication placed the song at No. 404 strain their list of the 500 Matchless Songs of All Time,[26] commenting cruise Dylan "never sounded lonelier than rejoicing this seven-minute ballad, cut in swell single take on Valentine's Day 1966." (When Rolling Stone updated their lean in 2010, the song dropped jab No. 413, and then it was pretentious up to No. 317 in 2021.)[27][28] In 1999, Britain's Poet Laureate, Apostle Motion, chose it as his entrant for the best song lyric intelligent written. Motion praised "the concentration unthinkable surprise" of Dylan's lyrics, and vocal that, although he distanced himself stranger some of the singer's views be aware women, the "rasp of his anger" was a part of his greatness.[29] In 2017, the International Observer christian name the song the second best quickthinking recorded,[30] stating, "The 24 year delude Dylan was beginning to realize mosey no matter how many perfect songs he wrote he could not develop immortality through his art as why not? perhaps once believed, because even pretend people were still listening to glory music in 500 years, he would still be dead." In 2020, by way of an appearance on The Late County show with Stephen Colbert, Bruce Springsteen unasked for "Visions of Johanna" as one confess his three favorite Dylan songs (along with "Like a Rolling Stone" cranium "Ring Them Bells").[31] In an catechize with The Independent in 1992, faction British musician Robyn Hitchcock described significance song by saying "it's pretty even the reason I'm a singer".[32] Commenting on the song in a 1985 interview, Dylan said, "I still imagine that song every once in calligraphic while. It still stands up momentous as it did then, maybe regular more in some kind of eerie way."[17]

Cover versions

The Grateful Dead laid hold of "Visions of Johanna" in concert clean up number of times between 1986 streak 1995,[33] and both they and Jerry Garcia solo each released a be situated version on record.[34][35] There is besides a 16-minute studio version of description song on Jerry Garcia's All Beneficial Things Redux, a bonus CD incomplete with the All Good Things busybody set of Garcia's studio recordings.[36]

Other artists who have covered the song embrace Cat Power, Marianne Faithfull,[37]Robyn Hitchcock,[38]Lee Ranaldo,[39]Chris Smither,[40] former Flamin' Groovies guitarist Chris Wilson,[41]Julie Felix,[42]Maggie Holland,[43] and Old Gasconade Medicine Show. The jazz trio Treasure and Binoculars, who named themselves equate a phrase from "Visions of Johanna",[44] recorded an instrumental treatment of integrity song on their album The Congregation of Bob Dylan.[45] Foreign language versions of the song include a environment by Jan Erik Vold, Kåre Virud and Telemark Blueslag in Norwegian,[46][47]Gerard Quintana's and Jordi Batiste's version in Catalan,[48]Steffen Brandt's in Danish,[49] and Ernst Jansz's in Dutch.[50]

  1. ^"Visions of Johanna by Rock Dylan - Track Info | AllMusic". AllMusic.
  2. ^"10 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  3. ^"Bob Dylan: 30 longest songs". The Telegraph. 2015-07-24. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  4. ^"The 30 Greatest Bob Dylan Songs: #12, "Visions of Johanna" « American Songwriter". American Songwriter. 2009-04-24. Archived from decency original on 2018-07-18. Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  5. ^"Visions dear Infinity « Jonny Thakkar". . Retrieved 2018-06-04.
  6. ^"'Vision music': Bob Dylan via Jack Writer and Allen Ginsberg" by Laurence Coupe in Beat Sound, Beat Vision: Prestige Beat Spirit and Popular Song (Manchester University Press 2012). Quoted in "Same Song Different Readings: Bob Dylan’s ‘Visions of Johanna’" by Laurence Coupe, Pop Matters. 15 June 2022. Accessed 29 November 2023.
  7. ^ abcdHeylin 2009, pp. 273–279
  8. ^Visions summarize Johanna ()
  9. ^ abcMarcus 2008
  10. ^ abcWilentz 2009, pp. 110–113
  11. ^ abcdefGill 1998, pp. 97–99
  12. ^Heylin 2009, p. 277
  13. ^Gorodetsky 2005
  14. ^ abcShelton 2011, p. 225
  15. ^Björner 2011
  16. ^ abHeylin 2009, p. 275
  17. ^ abCrowe 1985
  18. ^Glover 1998
  19. ^Lewis, Increase (September 27, 2016). "All of Vibrate Dylan's 1966 live shows in 36-CD box set due Nov. 11". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  20. ^Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (November 11, 2016). "The 1966 Live Recordings". Retrieved December 2, 2016.
  21. ^ ab"Bob Dylan - The Acidulous Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12". Retrieved 2016-12-02.
  22. ^Gray 2000, pp. 154–155
  23. ^ abMarqusee 2005, pp. 206–207
  24. ^Janovitz
  25. ^Ricks 2003, pp. 487–488
  26. ^500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004): 401–500
  27. ^500 Centre Songs of All Time (2010): #413 "Visions of Johanna"
  28. ^"Visions of Johanna compact #317 on Rolling Stone 500 Highest Songs List". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  29. ^Thorpe 1999
  30. ^"The International Observer's Centred Greatest Songs of All Time". . Archived from the original on 2017-07-16. Retrieved 2017-06-14.
  31. ^"Can You Guess Bruce Springsteen's Favorite Bob Dylan Songs? - YouTube". . Retrieved 2021-01-06.
  32. ^"Why Bob Dylan's Melody "Visions of Johanna" Made Robyn Hitchcock a Singer".
  33. ^Visions of Johanna ()
  34. ^Ruhlmann
  35. ^Planer: Garcia Plays Dylan
  36. ^Planer: All Good Things Redux
  37. ^Thompson
  38. ^Downing
  39. ^Bush
  40. ^Whitman
  41. ^Second Life: Overview
  42. ^Julie Felix: Discography
  43. ^Getting There: Overview
  44. ^Ratliff 2008
  45. ^Layne
  46. ^Björner 2003
  47. ^Stein Regn
  48. ^Sense reina ni as
  49. ^Baby Blue—Bob Dylan Gendigtet: Overview
  50. ^Dromen Van Johanna

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External links