Visions of Johanna Lyrics

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
Tempting you to defy itLights 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 offJust Louise and her lover
So entwined
And these visions of Johanna
That conquer my mindIn the empty lot where the ladies play
Blindman's bluff with the keychain
And the all night girls they whisper of
Escapades out on the "D" trainWe can hear the night watchman
Click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them
It's insaneLouise, 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 hereThe ghost of electricity
Howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna
Have now taken my placeNow, 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 meHe's sure got a lotta gall
To be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall
While I'm in the hallOh, how can I explain?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna
They kept me up past the dawnInside 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 smilesSee 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 cruelThe 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
"You can't look at much, can you man?"
As she, herself, prepares for himAnd 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 roadHe writes every thing's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodesThe harmonicas play
The skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna
Are now all that remain