The Story Behind 'L.A. Woman' – the Best Road Song Ever Recorded

An ode to a city? A poem to a lover? A goodbye to the City of Angels, and a bonjour to Paris? Or simply the greatest (fucking) road song ever recorded?

“L.A. Woman” is a song about “rhythm” – its own, that of a city, that of the sublime moment of attraction to the opposite sex – something far beyond falling in love.

It’s a song that captures the electrifying, anything-is-possible feeling of driving through and around Los Angeles. Mountains to the right, ocean to the left and a giant pool of light in between – all within view at the same time.

In “L.A. Woman,” the city and the woman – each as alluring as the other – blur into one.

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ONE OF DYLAN'S MOST POWERFUL SONGS
Ain't it just like the night?
Bob Dylan
Written by Bob Dylan

“Visions Of Johanna” is fraught with images of the drifting, unpredictable muse of the heavens, beginning with one of the most powerful lines in rock music:

The ghost of electricity
Howls in the bones of her face…

Dylan’s lyrical work – always spinning along like its own synoptic gospel, telling the same story in the same order with different words – reaches a zenith in “Johanna.”

Dylan dishes two types of muses in the song. One is earthbound, available and sexual. The other is ethereal, capricious and inspirational on a different plane. The latter is the Madonna and/or the Mona Lisa and the Johanna of “Visions Of Johanna.”

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Songs That Shape Rock-n-Roll

DNA Source Songs™ — A deep dive into the gritty, boundary-busting, 800-pound sound spanning Elvis to The Beatles from Neil Young to Nirvana from Led Zeppelin to Jack White and all their artistic, fire-breathing brothers and sisters in arms. These are the elite songs that make Rock-N-Roll the biggest, baddest musical genre on earth.

Mapping The DNA of Rock-N-Roll

SongMango identifies, profiles, analyzes and celebrates the greatest, most influential Rock-N-Roll songs of all time, both past and present. SongMango captures and showcases the elite group of songs that represents the source DNA of Rock-N-Roll – those seminal, bomber songs that embody, enrich and sustain the edgy, high-octane monster musical genre of bands from Cream to The Grateful Dead from Nirvana to Alabama Shakes from Springsteen to Trigger Hippy.

Through its unique “Rock-N-Roll DNA Mapping Project” – an extensive work in progress – SongMango traces and maps out (ultimately, in 3-D double-helix fashion) the songs that have shaped, and continue to shape, the most unpredictable, most raucous musical genre on the planet. The SongMango DNA Map will serve up a detailed, song-by-song visual accounting of the evolution of Rock-N-Roll, where it came from and where it’s going, as well as where its genetic strengths and weaknesses originate.