Intro :
A in't it just like the night to play t ricks when you're tryin' to
be so qui et?
We sit here stranded though w e're all doin'
our best to den y it
And Lou ise holds a handful of rain temptin' you to defy it
Lights f licker from the opposite l oft
In this ro om the heat pipes just co ugh
The c ountry music station plays so ft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn off
Just Lou ise and her l over so entw ined
And these v isions of Joha nna that co nquer my m ind
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
