“Visions Of Johanna” by Bob Dylan

"Visions of Johanna" is the hushed, haunted heart of Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde from 1966, and it took him two tries to catch it. He first tackled it in New York in November 1965 under the working title "Freeze Out" and didn't like what he heard, then cut it again in Nashville in February 1966 with a different crew of players. That's the take that made the record, with Bob Johnston producing.

Its language is all suggestion and allusion, images sliding past without ever quite landing, and critics have long ranked it among Dylan's finest writing for exactly that elusiveness. Rolling Stone put it on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and in 1999 Britain's Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, named it the greatest song lyric ever written.

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