A Philosophical Pop Song
Robert Shelton called “Visions of Johanna” one of Bob Dylan’s major works, noting that its philosophical significance places the singer firmly apart from the world of popular music. “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?”60 For Andrew Morton, poet, novelist, and professor of English literature at the University of Hull, Canada, “Visions of Johanna” is the best written of all the songs he has ever read and heard. It is a song that expresses all the spleen of an artist. Dylan had “never sounded lonelier than in this seven-minute ballad, cut in a single take on Valentine’s Day 1966.”50
Production
There are several versions of “Visions of Johanna.” Dylan first recorded the song on November 30, 1965, in Columbia’s Studio A in New York, backed by Al Kooper, Joe South (guitar), and Robert Gregg, along with the Hawks’ musicians, including Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Rick Danko, and Garth Hudson. Fourteen takes were made under the working title “Freeze-Out.” Dylan hesitated about the arrangements. The first attempts, with maracas, remained in the rock-blues-soul style of Highway 61 Revisited. The eighth take was released on The Bootleg Series Volume 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (2005) and has a different tempo: the rhythm is heavy, swaying, and Robertson’s solo guitar playing is present throughout the song; one can even hear a clavinet. Even after all the takes on November 30, Dylan was unsatisfied with the result. He was not sure about the tone he wanted to give to the song. He found his answer in Nashville, at the recording sessions for Blonde on Blonde on February 14.
On that day, Dylan arrived at the studio several hours late, as his flight was delayed in Norfolk, Virginia. Accompanied by Grossman, his new wife Sara, and his first son Jesse, just one month old at the time, he immediately started work. First, he reworked the lyrics. He asked the musicians to wait so that he could finish. Pianist Bill Aikins, who temporarily replaced Hargus Robbins, recalls the unusual situation: “I can remember him sitting at the piano in deep, deep, meditative thought… He was creating, writing… Then, after I don’t know how long, but it was hours, they said, ‘OK, Bob’s ready to put this song down.’”64
Dylan first played the song so that the musicians could note down chords and key changes. The song quickly fell into place. After three attempts, the fourth take was chosen. Bob played acoustic and harmonica (in D), Wayne Moss solo guitar (some sources mention Robbie Robertson, but he apparently arrived in Nashville on March 7), Charlie McCoy presumably played rhythmic guitar with impressive accuracy, Kenneth Buttrey was on drums, Joe South on bass, and Al Kooper on organ. In an interview with Andy Gill, Al Kooper said, “If you listen to it very critically, it’s very important, what Joe South’s bass is doing in that. He’s playing this throbbing thing which rhythmically is an amazing bass part, and it really makes the track. Charlie McCoy couldn’t have done that, he doesn’t think like that. On my part, I was responding to the lyrics—like when he says, ‘The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.’”24 Also, despite the presence of Bill Aikins in the studio, it is unclear whether or not he played piano. The sound is inaudible.
Steve Harley, the singer of the group Cockney Rebel, said in Mojo magazine that with this song Bob Dylan surpassed all other songwriters of his generation and rose to the heights of the greatest poets. “Hearing it for the first time has never left my mind. Suddenly I wasn’t a 15-year-old listening to music anymore; I was hearing poetry… Am I awake? Am I asleep? All I’ve got is visions of Johanna, which keep me up past dawn. The man can’t sleep! He’s lovesick. But is he really? Or is this poetry? This isn’t Wordsworth or Keats. Dylan is beyond them.”65
Bob Dylan first performed “Visions of Johanna” onstage at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, on February 5, 1966. Two live versions, both acoustic, recorded during his 1966 tour of England have been released. The concert at the Royal Albert Hall on May 26, 1966, appears on Biograph, released in 1985; and the concert in the Manchester Free Trade Hall on May 17, 1966, was released on The Bootleg Series Volume 4: Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert in 1998.
COVERS
“Visions of Johanna” was adapted by Piccadilly Line (The Huge World of Emily Small, 1967), Marianne Faithfull (Rich Kid Blues, 1984), Lee Ranaldo (Outlaw Blues, Vol. 2, 1995), and Jerry Garcia (Plays Dylan, 2005), and was performed many times onstage by the Grateful Dead. Dylan’s song was also recorded by Gerard Quintana, known as the “Catalan Mick Jagger,” and by Steffen Brandt and Ernst Jansz.
IN YOUR HEADPHONES
Joe South commits two small errors on bass: one at 1:16 and another at 6:27, when he returns to the verse thinking his bandmates are following him, which is not the case.
One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)
Bob Dylan / 4:55
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Robbie Robertson: guitar
Paul Griffin: piano
Al Kooper: organ
Rick Danko: bass
Bobby Gregg: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios / Studio A, New York: January 25, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Sound Engineers: Roy Halee, Pete Dauria, and Larry Keyes
Genesis and Lyrics
After the journey “to the other side of the mirror” in “Visions of Johanna,” Bob Dylan returned to a much more realistic world with “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later).” The song is about a burned-out relationship,28 a recurring theme in Dylan’s songs. The narrator analyzes the reasons for the deterioration of his relationship over the weeks before and offers conclusions. In the first verse: “I didn’t mean to treat you so bad / You shouldn’t take it so personal / I didn’t mean to make you so sad / You just happened to be there, that’s all / When I saw you say ‘goodbye’ to your friend and smile / I thought that it was well understood / That you’d be comin’ back in a little while / I didn’t know that you were sayin’ ‘goodbye’ for good.” These lines could refer to the end of the relationship between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, especially to her sudden departure during Dylan’s tour of England in 1965 (as it is shown in the documentary Dont Look Back). The “queen of folk” did not appreciate the fact that her ex-boyfriend never recognized any artistic debt to her and, worse, ridiculed their relationship.
Production
“One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” was recorded during the second day of the New York sessions for Blonde on Blonde on January 25, 1966 (“She’s Your Lover Now” was recorded on January 21, but not chosen for the album). Bob and his musicians seem to have had some trouble. Nineteen takes were necessary to record a successful version of the song. Despite eight complete versions, only the last one made it onto the album. The introduction starts with a rimshot by Bobby Gregg. The piece lacks rhythmic rigor; Dylan and Robertson’s guitars needed better tuning. In addition, the entire performance lacks precision, especially in the second break (2:59). This is unfortunate because it is a very good song, and its release as a single proves its potential. In 1969, Dylan told Jann Wenner, “That’s one of my favorite songs.”20
Among the musicians, Paul Griffin provided an excellent piano part linking the song together. According to critic Jonathan Singer, Griffin “gave to the song his tragic depth—and height… At the chorus, Griffin unleashes a symphony; hammering his way up and down the keyboard, half Gershwin, half gospel, all heart. The follow-up, a killer left-hand figure that links the chorus to the verse, releases none of the song’s tension.” Al Kooper remembers, “I wasn’t booked for the session, but I visited the sessio
n and ended up playing on it. The piano playing on ‘One of Us Must Know’ is quite magnificent, it influenced me enormously as a pianist. It’s probably Paul Griffin’s finest moment. He was an amazing player.”24
The song was released as a single on February 14, 1966, with “Queen Jane Approximately” as the B-side. It reached only number 119 on the US Billboard charts and number 33 in the UK. Ten years later Bob Dylan performed it live onstage in Wichita, Kansas, on May 19, 1976.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
In the Dutch and Swedish releases, both sides of the single released in May 1966 are reversed: “Queen Jane Approximately” is the A-side and “One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)” is on the B-side!
I Want You
Bob Dylan / 3:08
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Wayne Moss: guitar
Robbie Robertson: guitar (?)
Charlie McCoy: guitar (?)
Joe South: guitar (?)
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: March 10, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
Dylan told Clinton Heylin, “It’s not just pretty words to a tune or putting tunes to words… [It’s] the words and the music [together]—I can hear the sound of what I want to say.”66 Dylan wrote several drafts of the text before creating the final version of this song, one of the most accessible of his repertoire. It is a paradox. The playful intro, driving beat, and catchy chorus make for a well-balanced song aimed at the hit parade, but behind this façade lies a complex song with a subtle blend of pop, a poetry rich in metaphors, and various unanswered questions. However, the song reached number 20 on the American Billboard chart. “I want you, I want you / I want you so bad / Honey, I want you” could not be clearer. At the same time, Dylan confuses the listener with some strange characters, such as “The guilty undertaker [who] sighs,” a “lonesome organ grinder [who] cries,” and “the drunken politician [who] leaps.” In love the narrator has a desire to return—“Well, I return to the Queen of Spades”—a reference to the Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky?
Production
Al Kooper met Bob Dylan on a regular basis in his hotel room and transcribed the music. Kooper: “I would sit and play the chords to a song he was working on, like a human cassette machine.”42 Back at the studio, he could teach the new songs to the musicians before Dylan arrived for the sessions, saving Bob the work. The recording of “I Want You” took place on March 10, 1966, between 3 and 7 a.m., during the final session for the album. Kooper, who loved this song, asked the songwriter every night to consider it for the next session. But each time Dylan demurred, “just to bug me,” according to Kooper. “He knew he was going to do it, but I kept pressing, because I had all these arrangement ideas, and I was afraid [the song] wouldn’t get cut, but he kept saying, ‘No,’ until finally, on the last night, I taught it to the band before he came in. When he came in, I said, ‘I took the liberty of teaching them “I Want You,”’ and he just smiled at me and said, ‘Well, yeah, we could do that.’ I said, ‘It’s all set, just come on in and plug into this.’ I had the basic arrangement in my head, but then Wayne Moss played that sixteenth-note guitar run, and I wasn’t ready for that! It was a wonderful addition to what I had in mind!”42 Indeed, this excellent guitarist surprised everyone by his skill. “I’d never heard anybody play that fast before,” Kooper later recalled. “[I] said, ‘Can you play that each time?’ and he said, ‘Sure.’ I said, ‘That would be great, Wayne.’ And I was just thinking to myself, ‘Boy, they can’t do this in New York.’ I couldn’t believe he played that.”67
For other guitarists, the identification is difficult. Bob played a great harmonica part (in F), and appears to be backed by a rhythmic electric guitar (Robertson or South?) and a nylon guitar, which is easily heard during the bridge (McCoy?). Kooper played a reverberant organ part as a wise counterpoint, and Robbins’s piano part is, as usual, very bright. Finally, Buttrey’s performance on drums with brushes is simply an exemplar of its kind, the real engine of the song. All the musicians are very comfortable in this rhythm, close to their roots. Ron Rosenbaum asked Dylan in 1978, “Was that wild mercury sound in ‘I Want You’?” “Yeah, it was in ‘I Want You,’” Dylan answered, “It was in a lot of that stuff.”20
“I Want You” was released as a single on June 10, 1966, with a live version of “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” on the B-side. It is the third single from the double album Blonde on Blonde. On June 16, the single peaked at number 6 on the US Billboard chart, and on July 21 number 16 on the UK chart. Bob Dylan performed “I Want You” for the first time onstage May 11, 1976, in San Antonio, Texas.
FOR DYLANOLOGISTS
The line “Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit / He spoke to me, I took his flute” probably refers to Brian Jones, who played flute (among other instruments) for the Rolling Stones and was Dylan’s friend. A few lines later, Dylan sings “because time was on his side” an obvious nod to Norman Meade’s song “Time Is on My Side,” the first Rolling Stones song to reach the top 10 in the United States (November 7, 1964).
COVERS
“I Want You” was covered by many artists, including Cher (Cher, 1966), the Hollies (Sing Dylan, 1969), Steve Gibbons (The Dylan Project, 1998), Cyril Neville (Blues on Blonde on Blonde, 2003), and James Blunt (Listen to Bob Dylan: A Tribute, 2005).
Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
Bob Dylan / 7:06
Musicians
Bob Dylan: vocals, guitar, harmonica
Joe South: guitar
Charlie McCoy: guitar
Mac Gayden: guitar
Wayne Moss: guitar
Al Kooper: organ
Hargus Robbins: piano (?)
Bill Aikins: piano (?)
Henry Strzelecki: bass
Kenneth Buttrey: drums
Recording Studio
Columbia Recording Studios, Nashville: February 16 and 17, 1966
Technical Team
Producer: Bob Johnston
Genesis and Lyrics
In a story straight out of a roman noir by W. R. Burnett or by James M. Cain, the narrator of this song finds himself stuck in a strange city—Mobile, Alabama—far away from home and family.
The song is a good example of Dylan writing under the literary influence of the Beat generation. The second verse is a masterpiece of nonsense or the result of a psychedelic experience: “Well, Shakespeare, he’s in the alley / With his pointed shoes and his bells / Speaking to some French girl / Who says she knows me well.” Dylan refers to a French girl in an alley for the second time; the first was in his 1965 song “Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream.” In the third verse, Mona comes to rescue the unfortunate narrator by telling him, “To stay away from the train line / She said that all the railroad men / Just drink up your blood like wine.” A senator appears in the fifth verse, “Now the senator came down here / Showing ev’ryone his gun / Handing out free tickets / To the wedding of his son.” The song has nine stranzas ending with the same question: “Oh, Mama, can this really be the end / To be stuck inside of Mobile / With the Memphis blues again?”
Production
Although the title of the song evokes the Memphis blues, the actual arrangement is rocklike in style with pop accents. Dylan recorded twenty takes during the night of February 16–17, between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., in a session devoted entirely to “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.” Dylan constantly introduced modifications in the words and in the piece’s structure. Eventually, the twentieth and final take was chosen as the master. Three of the other takes were also used. The fifth take was released on The Bootleg Series Volume 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack in 2005. That version has a slower tempo, closer to the spirit
of blues and perhaps more inspired than the one released on the album. Joe South distinguished himself by his brilliant guitar playing and licks in the Nashville style. Al Kooper: “His unique guitar style is most discernible in the mix on ‘Memphis Blues Again.’ He and I have some nice organ-guitar trade-offs in that one.”42
Like a majority of the tracks in the album, “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” relies heavily on guitars, although it is difficult to put a name on each instrumental part. This piece features two acoustic guitars, and probably also a 12-string guitar. A rhythmic part for electric guitar and piano, especially at the breaks and the end of each verse, can be heard, but both are lost in the mix. Finally, Strzelecki and Buttrey provide an excellent bass-drum groove.
Bob Dylan All the Songs Page 30
