This is plainly a fertility image: Louise is womanly, and knowingly so — she offers tangible rewards. Repressing the urge to enjoy these offerings is itself denial, of a different sort. Note also the clever rhymes of the first three lines. The next two lines are scene-setting, their spare description evoking a late-night eeriness. The stillness is interrupted by the lights, the pipes, and a country music station playing soft. This fear of nothingness is explicitly tied to loving Louise in the next line.
Louise and her lover are the country music, just as Johanna will be poetry. The first verse of the song contains all the themes of the rest of the song. The opposition of Louise and Johanna — on one level, the dime-a-dozen girl vs the non-existent soul mate; and on another, the earthly vs the pure, the ideal.
These motifs haunt the form and content of the remaining verses, to which we now turn. I can think of two readings of this story. We could read Dylan himself as being the night watchman, surveying the night, clicking a metaphorical flashlight of focus onto the empty lot beneath his loft. Or we could, I would suggest, read the first four lines as being the mediocre song I mentioned in the last section. But Louise-writing only seems like the mirror.
This deft enjambement running a phrase over a line-break for effect serves to highlight not only the central contrast between Louise and Johanna, but one of the expressions of that divide, the form of the song itself. Louise is prose, Johanna is poetry. This image is the highlight of the song for me. Not only is the allusion rich when examined, but also its sheer presence is self-consciously writerly and thereby underscores the theme of the verse.
We see the latter in Songs Of Experience :. I love you like the little bird That picks up crumbs around the door. The priest sat by and heard the child; In trembling zeal he seized his hair. He led him by his little coat, And all admired the priestly care. The weeping child could not be heard; The weeping parents wept in vain. They stripped him to his little shirt, And bound him in an iron chain,.
I think your Desolation Row suggestion is interesting. The calypso singers are laughing at Ezra Pound and T. Eliot fighting which is arguably cruel compared to the fishermen whose flowers might associate them with peace. The analysis of the museums, the fiddler and the fish is excellent and I would just note that Christ also wrote on the ground in the Gospels John Thanks for this comment SJ — again, very helpful. That these visions of Johanna be all that remain suggests that a work of art is superior to narure in that it can give the artist an afterlife because a piece of art can outlast the life of its creator, and be admired for its everlasting beauty.
Escapades , D-train, is saying for those still have freedom are leaving the place, means also leaving their fighting-together friends… Johanna.. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Search for:. Share this: Twitter Facebook.
The last stanza is the most cryptic and most tempting to dismiss. I think the reference to two Jewish archetypes peddler, fiddler is very striking. And there is something suggestive about a violin player — a musician and artist — delivering the message or perhaps simple life advice that there are no debts, that we are not beholden, on something as prosaic as a fish truck.
And then he makes his own music with the skeleton keys of his harmonica, transforming the visions of Johana into art — the only thing you can do with lost love other than dwell or try to forget. But yes, like so often in Dylan, the at times too easy rhymes inform the lines, and efforts to read too deep into every word are misplaced.
She is perhaps a woman who uses her love for the unsatisfied narrator — and the devastation it would cause if he left her — to guilt him into staying, even though he knows the relationship is not right. Your email address will not be published. Notify me of new posts by email. On paper the lyrics are amazing, but combined with the music, vocal delivery and harmonica, the song is transcendent. Found this ode to VOJ while looking for a recommended political site 12 Visions.
Yeah, but 12th best is a critical joke — so nice to see you guys are much wiser critics, whatever the rest of that list says. I do not think Masters of War is even close here is my best guess. The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll 9.
One Too Many Mornings live 8. Desolation Row 6. Hurricane 5. Tangled Up in Blue 4. Isis 3. I Shall Be Released 2. Like a Rolling Stone 1. Visions of Johanna.
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