True fact: Chuck Berry wrote five songs about Mr. Johnny B. Goode, so you’d be forgiven for confusing any of them with the titular and most famous of them.
“Bye Bye Johnny” debuted two years after “Johnny B. Goode.” When last we left Johnny, his mother was proclaiming and predicting that someday he’d be a man, bandleader, and a star with his name in lights. When “Bye Bye Johnny” begins, Johnny’s mom is putting her boy on a bus and sending him west to stardom.
If those first lines sound familiar, that’s because Bruce borrowed and paid homage to them in his own song, “Johnny Bye-Bye.”
In Berry’s version, Johnny’s mom had toiled and saved to buy her son a guitar and give him a chance to make it big–a detail that certainly must have resonated with Bruce. The song ends with his mother waiting for Johnny to return home with his new bride and build a mansion for his family. The story would continue.
Considering it inspired a song in his catalog, it’s surprising that Bruce has only covered the song three times over the years, and never in an “official” E Street Band concert setting. Here’s the most recent of those three performances, from Bruce’s Asbury Park guest appearance with Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul from April 2017.
Bye Bye Johnny
First performed: July 17, 1982 (Red Bank, NJ)
Last performed: April 22, 2017 (Red Bank, NJ)
