Remarks:
This song reached #2 on the American R&B charts in 1958 and #8 on the pop charts. Both blacks and whites liked it. Berry sounded white on the radio. He changed the lyrics from “coloured boy” to “country boy” so it would get played on white radio. This is the song that made Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones want to become a guitarist. Carl Sagan put it on the Golden Record on the two Voyager spacecrafts that are leaving the Solar System. The two golden records will probably last a billion years.
Lyrics:
Deep down Louisiana close to New Orleans,
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood,
Where lived a colored country boy named of Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well,
But he could play the guitar like ringing a bell.
[Chorus:]
Go Go
Go Johnny Go
Go Go
Johnny B. Goode
He use to carry his guitar in a gunny sack
Or sit beneath the trees by the railroad track.
Oh, the engineers used to see him sitting in the shade,
Strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made.
The People passing by, they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play
[Chorus]
His mother told him someday you will be a man,
And you would be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around
To hear you play your music when the sun go down
Maybe someday your name will be in lights
Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight.
[Chorus]
Great song.
Chuck was/is a limited guitarist, but he wrote songs and riffs that have stood the test of time.
As a human being he has demonstrated his flaws over the years, but then most of us do – especially those people who are in the public eye.
It’s a shame he changed his lyric. F|_|ck white radio.
I don’t think there can be many of us who play guitar who haven’t used Chuck’s stuff as essential lessons.
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I used to think it was a white man who did this song. Chuck berry is awesome, love the guitar on this song.rofl I remember hearing this song on back to the future when I was younger.
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Great song.
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Definitely one of the greats. I don’t know if I’d say his guitar skills were limited. Certainly for the time period he set the bar for rock and roll. You can hear his influence in all the music that came afterward. I suspect when we listen to his songs today we think, well, I’ve heard that before. It’s so cliched. But that’s because EVERYONE has sampled, remade, been influenced by and outright stolen so much of it — especially groups like The Beach Boys (yuck), whom white America just reveres for some bizarre reason. Muzak in retail stores, jingles for Madison Avenue, movie and television soundtracks, other rock music, everything. There hasn’t been one aspect of American popular culture that hasn’t exploited Johnny B. Goode in some way. I could be wrong, but it seems so pervasive.
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Unfortunately, many people seem to know this song from Back to the Future II, Terry Pratchett, though basing the main character of “Soul Music” on Buddy Holly, gave the character both a backstory based on Johnny B. Goode and a “greatest song ever” titled “Sioni Bod Da” i.e, “Jonny be good” in Welsh.
It makes so much more sense if you know “country” is a stand in for “colored”…
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The King of Rock-n-Roll.
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That was really entertaining. I wondered what he looked liked after seeing Mos Def (Y- something..?) portray him in that movie. I think I’ll look him up.
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