Visions of Johanna - Interpretation

Interpretation

Noting how popular "Visions of Johanna" remains among "hardcore Dylanophiles", Andy Gill suggests it is the enigmatic quality of the song which is responsible for its popularity—"forever teetering on the brink of lucidity, yet remaining impervious to strict decipherment". Gill writes the song begins by contrasting two lovers, the carnal Louise, and "the more spiritual but unattainable" Johanna. Ultimately, for Gill, the song seeks to convey how the artist is compelled to keep striving to pursue some elusive vision of perfection.

Clinton Heylin has described what he construes as the strange circumstances surrounding the song. Written around the time of Dylan's marriage to Sara Lownds, Heylin describes it as "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". Connecting the songs with Dylan's experiencing a dearth of material as he commences work on his seventh studio album, Heylin speculates that "it is awfully tempting to see Johanna as his muse" who, in the song, is "not here". For Heylin, the triumph of the song lies in "the way Dylan manages to write about the most inchoate feelings in such a vivid, immediate way".

Dylan critic Michael Gray also praises the subtlety of the song. Gray acknowledges that it is difficult to say what this song is "about", since it is at once indefinable and precise. For Gray, its principal achievement lies in the way it confuses categories, using language to be simultaneously serious and flippant, delicate and coarse, and mixing up "abstract neo-philosophy and figurative phraseology".

Robert Shelton called "Visions of Johanna" one of Dylan's major works. He writes that Dylan's technique of throwing out "skittering images" evokes "a mind floating downstream"; these "non-sequential visions" are the record of a fractured consciousness. Shelton argues that the song explores a hopeless quest to reach an ideal, the visions of Johanna, and yet without this quest life becomes meaningless. He suggests that the same paradox is explored by Keats in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

Mike Marqusee situates the song in New York City, "a flickering, electric, ghostly, cityscape". Dylan describes himself stranded in a fog of detachment which provides a haven, and at the same time is pained by a piercing clarity: an unmediated response that is "too concise and too clear". For Marqusee, Dylan describes his predicament, suspended between freedom and slavery, yet hungry for an authentic experience. Johanna and Louise are objects of desire and yearning. "It is their elusiveness and unreality that's the point."

Guitarist and critic Bill Janovitz also emphasizes the urban, unreal quality of "Visions of Johanna", calling it a "sprawling epic". "The journey takes Dylan through lofts, the D train, a museum, empty lots, and through snippets of overheard conversation, as well as a discussion with some 'little boy lost', who 'takes himself so seriously', and who is 'so useless and all/muttering small talk at the wall'." For Janovitz, this could "possibly be a swipe at a critic".

Literary critic Christopher Ricks, in his study of Dylan's work, pinpoints the emotional effect of these same lines:

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

Ricks writes that the phrase "and all" turns a mood of helplessness into a sense of "aggression and baffled anger".

Trying to unravel the mystery of the song, Greil Marcus writes that the song is concerned with internal questions, rather than external ones: "Line by line, 'Blowin' in the Wind' is pious, or falsely innocent—isn't it obvious that whoever wrote "Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail / Before she sleeps in the sand?" already knows the answer, assuming he, or anyone, can actually bring themselves to care about such a precious question? But 'Visions of Johanna' is asking different sorts of questions. Such as: Where are you? Who are you? What are you doing here?" Evoking the drugged, urban milieu of the song, Marcus writes of "People wandering from one corner of a loft to another, doped, drunk, half-awake, fast asleep, no point to the next breath, let alone the next step." For Marcus, "'Visions of Johanna' makes a narrative solely out of atmosphere."