Visions Of Johanna

[0rchestra-of-0z]

Ok everyone, I tried searching through the forums and some posts came up, but couldn't really find anything. I heard from a friend earlier today that someone said (one of the producers?) the a song that reminds them of season 6 is Visions Of Johanna by Bob Dylan. I can post if anyone's interested (though of course anyone could look it up easily). I was just wondering what people thought they found in the lyrics...?

I apologize if this is old news btw!!

[JfromtheD]

He was dating Joan Baez, but fell in love with his future wife instead?

[LissaMarie]

Hey Oz. I hadn't heard anything about it at all. How cool! Love Dylan but I think it's interesting that it was also covered by the Grateful Dead. I'm such a lyric nerd so this is right up my alley! Here are the lyrics (he's a wordy little beatnik, huh?):

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handfull of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn of
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

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 watcman 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 electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
Oh, how can I explain ?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
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
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man "

As she, herself prepares for him
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.

[LissaMarie]

Also, here's a link to the Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visions_of_Johanna

The line I found to be most intriguing is this:

"He later comments 'In VoJ Dylan is stranded between extremes - total freedom and abject slavery.'

Others have subjected the words to poetic 'close reading' and have found in it a wealth of allusion, for example, to William Blake; thus Thakkar [2] says 'My claims will be these: Louise represents the earthly, the prosaic, the finite; and Johanna represents the pure, the poetic, the infinite'."

[chester]

I read the interview where Damon said this song was lyrically applicable to Season 6, and followed the link to the lyrics provided within the interview. But just ended up being even more confused once I read them.

Lissa are you (or Oz, or is anyone else) willing and able to go through the lyrics and provide some kind of LOST-related interpretation that might be understandable to us non-poetic types?

[LissaMarie]

I really like the quote I quoted from the Wiki page. I don't think I can put it any better than that. I think it's the same black vs. white, science vs. faith, pre-destiny vs. free-will, cynicism vs. optimism, WHAH vs. TCC contradictions we've speculated over for the last 5 seasons.

[chester]

Originally Posted by LissaMarie

I really like the quote I quoted from the Wiki page. I don't think I can put it any better than that. I think it's the same black vs. white, science vs. faith, pre-destiny vs. free-will, cynicism vs. optimism, WHAH vs. TCC contradictions we've speculated over for the last 5 seasons.

Is there some kind of resolution to this/these issue/s then within those lyrics. I really hope there is in season 6, with the WHAH vs TCC issue at the very least.

[LissaMarie]

Originally Posted by chester

Is there some kind of resolution to this/these issue/s then within those lyrics. I really hope there is in season 6, with the WHAH vs TCC issue at the very least.

No resolution in the song, Chester. That better not be what they were eluding to!

It's basically about a man who loves a good, virtuous woman who he can't be with. He's with another woman who seems to be a polar opposite to Johanna, his true love, so it's basically a "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" kind of a scenario. You can see by the last line that he's still pining for his true love, as visions of Johanna are all that remain.

Here's a bit of trivia. There are about 5 different versions of the song (interesting tidbit I thought, especially in light of time-travel & TCC) and it was originally going to be called, "Seems Like a Freeze Out".

[Jelena]

Originally Posted by LissaMarie

No resolution in the song, Chester. That better not be what they were eluding to!

It's basically about a man who loves a good, virtuous woman who he can't be with. He's with another woman who seems to be a polar opposite to Johanna, his true love, so it's basically a "if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" kind of a scenario. You can see by the last line that he's still pining for his true love, as visions of Johanna are all that remain.

Here's a bit of trivia. There are about 5 different versions of the song (interesting tidbit I thought, especially in light of time-travel & TCC) and it was originally going to be called, "Seems Like a Freeze Out".

The lyrics are very sad, and a lot of words and phrases are reminiscent of LOST. But immediately the song reminded me of the infamous trio - Juliet/Sawyer/Kate. Don't know who's who, but it seems to me that the song confirms Juliet's dead, and Sawyer will be with Kate. IDK.

Your analysis of the song is very interesting Lisa - in terms of dualities I mean.

[krakup]

it could just mean Damon has good taste in music. after all it's Dylan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsNaM0Qvnfw