Of all the songwriters in rock history, Bob Dylan is widely considered to be among the best lyricists; after all, he’s the only rock star ever to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. But which of Dylan’s many outstanding classics is hailed as his own highest achievement?
That depends on who you ask, of course, but a popular pick with critics and fans alike has always been the incomparable “Visions of Johanna.”
Released on the iconic 1966 album Blonde on Blonde, “Visions of Johanna” has been hailed as “a tour de force, a breakthrough not only for the writer but for the very possibilities of songwriting” by Rolling Stone (RS also featured the song on their list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time“). Robert Shelton, author of No Direction Home: The Life and Music of Bob Dylan, ranked the song among Dylan’s most important works, comparing it to Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn.” In 1999, Britain’s Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, even cited “Visions of Johanna” as the best song lyric of all time, by anyone, according to The Guardian. (And those are just a few examples.)
As for what “Visions of Johanna” is about, listeners have been analyzing the lyrics for decades trying to figure that out. (Such is the case with much of Dylan’s catalogue.) True to form, Dylan himself has never explained. What we do know, though, is that he wrote the song while staying at the Chelsea Hotel in NYC with his pregnant wife Sara Lownds — a circumstance which prompted music journalist Clinton Heylin, author of Revolution In The Air: The Songs of Bob Dylan, Volume One: 1957–73, to call it “one of the oddest songs ever written by a man who has just tied the knot and is enjoying a brief honeymoon in the city.”
Heylin’s point is a fair one, as the lyrics tell the tale of a man who seems to be torn between his current lover and the memories of a former one:
In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
When Dylan performed “Visions of Johanna” for the first time in concert in 1965, the audience included poet Allen Ginsberg, a major influence on Dylan, and Joan Baez, who couldn’t help but wonder if the fictional Johanna was based on her.
“He’d just written ‘Visions of Johanna,’ which sounded very suspicious to me…he’d never performed it before and [Bob] Neuwirth told him I was there that night and he performed it,” Baez said.
Related: Why Bob Dylan Regrets Writing This Song: ‘I Must Have Been a Real Schmuck’
In November of that same year, Dylan attempted to record “Visions of Johanna” (originally titled “Seems Like a Freeze Out”) with the Hawks, but after 14 agonizing takes, it still wasn’t perfect.
A few months later, however, Dylan managed to get the song exactly right in just one take while recording in Nashville, aided by such gifted musicians as Al Kooper on Hammond B3 organ and Robbie Robertson on guitar. (Fun fact: The successful session just happened to take place on Valentine’s Day of 1966).
Alas, as fans likely already know, Dylan’s marriage to Lownds eventually crumbled, inspiring the acclaimed album Blood on the Tracks. But “Visions of Johanna” lives on. In 1985, Dylan made a concession to the song’s staying power, saying, “I still sing that song every once in a while. It still stands up now as it did then. Maybe even more in some kind of weird way.”
Related: 1975 Bob Dylan Hit, Ranked Among ‘Greatest Songs of All Time,’ Took ’10 Years to Live and Two Years to Write’