marianne faithfull
visions of johanna
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. 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" 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 who'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 hasn't showed We see the empty cage now corrode Where her cape of the stage once had flowed The fiddler, he now steps on the road He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed On the back of the fish trucks that load While my conscience explodes The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain. 