"Visions of Johanna"- Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is the unfortunate victim of decades worth of attempts to interpret his work in allegorical terms- discerning metaphors and phrases as symbols for deeper meanings. I say the word unfortunate because what has happened to letting a song stand on its own, without fruitless interpretation?

In her seminal essay "Against Interpretation," Susan Sontag claims that 'interpretation means plucking a set of elements (the X, the Y, the Z, and so forth) from the whole work. The task of interpretation is virtually one of translation. The interpreter says, Look, don't you see that X is really-- or, really means-- A? That Y is really B? That Z is really C?" (5). With Sontag in mind, trying to delve deeper into to Dylan's work to find symbols and absolute meanings does it a disservice. For example, many attribute the words of "Shelter from the Storm" to an allegorical tale about Vietnam. What!? Is there anything in the song that directly warrants this?

Participating in such mind acrobatics, means-- going back to Sontag-- "to impoverish, to deplete the world--in order to set up a shadow of 'meanings." (7). Great artists don't infuse their works with lavish symbols left to be interpreted by intellectuals, they enlighten us to truths and unravel complexities and states of being altogether helping us inhabit our own lives without supplying answers to otherwise unanswerable questions. I've read numerous accounts of the 'meaning' of "Johanna," but a simple, pragmatic look at the song reveals a true poet in his greatest form.

Dylan begins the first verse with vivid imagery of the stark contrast between the silence of night and the noise of a city: a silent loft filled with 'flickering' lights from outside, coughing 'heat pipes,' and the 'soft' volume of a country music station.
The narrator is 'stranded' in the silence, although he does his best to deny it while Louise and her lover bring back memories of Johanna.

Louise triggers thoughts of Johanna and "the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face/ Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place." The vulnerability of his love is brought out in his trip to the museum where "infinity goes up on trial," flowers 'freeze', 'jelly faced women sneeze." Just like his relationship with Johanna, these pieces of art are not infinite. Mona Lisa has the 'highway' blues, women become jelly faced with age and can't seem to find their knees. "Cruel"- yes, but truthful. Time makes victims of us all. Relationships end or fade, although we always do "our best to deny it."

And finally to the concluding verse:

And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
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
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

The rain is acknowledged from the first verse as "harmonicas play the skeleton keys." The theatrical imagery of the fiddler, flowing cape, and empty cage resonate with the previous descriptions of the vulnerability of art. His 'conscience explodes' after his time with Louise, 'everything's been returned which was owed" and only memories remain.

Trying to interpret the song on a symbolic level is ludicrous because the narrator goes through a process of actually defying such a thing in the song. Just as the 'night plays tricks" when he's trying to be so quiet, he tricks himself into denying that he is stranded. Encounters with Louise only confound his memories of Johanna. He realizes that infinity is a fallacy, as 'primitive wall flowers freeze."

The theatrical imagery in the last verse is another step in his evolution. The play is over. The fiddler plays the last song while harmonicas play skeleton keys, leaving only memories. He no longer denies the 'rain,' and refuses to project Johanna into a timeless narrative. The show and deception end as the "fish truck" pulls away. No answers, just a personal perspective on life.

Dylan's solo acoustic version from the famed "Royal Albert Hall" gig in 1966 is the best version I've heard. The progression of the song, and the shifting thoughts and perspectives are highlighted by Dylan's undulating vocal patterns and dynamic strumming. The last verse is given added substance by the piercing notes of his harmonica that mimetically plays the farewell song mentioned in the preceding words.

Check Out Susan Sontag's "Against Interpetation and Other Essays," "Regarding the Pain of Others," and her fiction work including "In America."

"Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world."-- Sontag