Visions of Johanna (Live)

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're trying to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though, we're all doing our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful 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
While there is none of it, another to turn off
But, Louise and her lover who's so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lots, where the ladies play
Blindman's bluff with the keychain
Where the all-night girls whisper of escapades out on the D-train
You can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that was really insane

And Louise, she's alright, 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

A little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing up her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
Oh, he's sure got a lot of gall
To be so useless and all
With his small talk in the wall, while I am in the hall

How can I explain?
It's so hard to get on
Oh, where 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
Where the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeez, I can't find my knees"
Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
Oh, where these visions of Johanna, are make it all seem so cruel, oh

The peddler now speaks
To the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone who's not a parasite
And I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But, like Louise always said
"You can't look at much, can you, man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him

And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage, now corrode
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes everything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
Harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
Now, these visions of Johanna are now all that remain