Bob Dylan - Visions Of Johanna (Live At Liverpool, 2001)

 

Bob Dylan - Visions Of Johanna

Live at King's Dock, Liverpool, UK

July 12, 2001

 

 

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 handful of rain, temptin' 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 off
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 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

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
How can I explain?
Oh, 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
Sayin', "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

 

Bob Dylan의 명반 Blonde on Blonde (1966)에 실려 있는 곡입니다. 딜런이 좋아하는 곡이기도 하고 제가 좋아하는 곡이기도 합니다. 또한 Bootleg Series 4 - Bob Dylan Live 1966 이라는 라이브 앨범에서도 멋진 라이브 버전을 들을 수 있습니다.

 

Johanna 가 무엇을 이야기 하는지에 대해서는 여러가지 설이 있다고 합니다. Wikipedia에 의하면,

1. Joan Baez를 말한다.

2. Hebrew 언어로 지옥을 의미하는 Gehenna, Ge-Hinnom 과 관련되어 있다.

3. Vincent van Gogh의 처제(또는 처형)인 Johanna Gezina van Gogh를 말한다.

이 세가지가 주된의견이라고 합니다.

그외 또다른 주장은 마약(아마도 헤로인) 또는 일반적인 환각상태를 이야기 한다는 것이라고 하고요.

이러한 주장들에 대해서 딜런 자신이 이렇다 저렇다 언급한 적은 없는 것으로 알려져 있습니다.

 

원래의 제목은 "Seems Like a Freeze Out" 이었다고 합니다.

 

딜런의 의도가 무엇이었던지 간에 멋진 노래... :-)

 

이 영상은 Audience Recording중에서 one Of The Best라고 할수 있는 2001년 Liverpool공연중에서 한곡입니다. Audience Recording을 허용하는 아티스트로는 Grateful Dead, Mark Knopfler가 유명하고 Bob Dylan은 허용하지 않습니다... 그 와중에도 많은 Audience Recording이 이루어지고 있지요. 개인용 Video Recorder들이 발달하면서 꽤 좋은 품질의 영상을 얻을 수 있습니다.