Johnny Guitar


Johnny "Guitar" Watson starin' at me
Riding on 3 wheels, a woman on his knee
With a leg under a red dress, I wish I could see
Further north a warmth alive & lingerin'

Now Johnny he be havin' lots of women
The reason he be smilin' know to him

On the left the girl in red so innocent
Never sheds her clothes even when she goes to bed
The type of girl responsible foriginal sin
Can't help but wonder where & who she is

And the memory is always getting clearer
For that's 30 years or more I've loved her so
And how I need to know, why she's with him

And I sleep with the light on, in case she comes
And I sleep with the light on, in case she...

Recently as I was waitin' on a dream
She came to visit lost & lonely me
She leaned over the bed & with her lips above my head
She asked if I had seen her Johnny

Oh and I hide my disappointment
'Cause for years I had been hopin'
Oh yea I had been hopin'
That when she came, she would come for me

I hide my disappointment
'Cause for years I had been hopin'
That when she came
she'd be comin' just for me




This is one of my favorite tracks on the new record, and one of the first ‘playful’ pearl jam songs that also manages to say something of substance (or be genuinely fun), which is hard to do in general, let alone for a band that (at least publically) takes itself as seriously as Pearl Jam does.

The contrast between the story told and the music is striking, and deliberate I think. It’s forceful, pushing itself along with an affecting determination, like it’s trying to take the listener somewhere important and is worried they won’t want to follow(force of nature moves the same way,although it’s a slower, sturdier song), especially in the intro, bridge, and outro, which try to give the song a vaguely portentous weight to it. The guitar interplay here is pretty nice, and like much of Backspacer deceptively simple (plus there is that subtle undertone of 70s pimp guitar that just fits the story so well).

But Eddie is the hero on this one. As I’ve said elsewhere, this is one of the most impressive vocal melodies he’s ever written (I especially love the way he comes out of the bridge and into the last verse—amazing), and a stand out on an album full of great ones. There’s the same level of energy and agitation that characterized the best songs on S/T, but the undertone is playful instead of angry, filthy, but clever enough so that it isn’t crass (‘And I sleep with the lights on in case she comes…’ and the brilliant ‘further north a warmth alive and lingering’)


The lyrics tell the story of an thirty plus year fantasy, an obsession the singer had with a beautiful girl he found an album cover. The whole song is about the singer lying to himself—that the girl is ‘real’, that she’s somehow pure and virtuous despite being with a lecherous musician, that she’s somehow innocent even while she’s corrupting his thoughts (I really love the ‘never sheds her clothes even when she goes to bed/the type of girl responsible for original sin lyrics and the way they evoke storytellers like Mark Knopfler and Bruce Springsteen), and that they’ll someday be together. Even at the end of the story, he lies to his fantasy because he doesn’t want to disappoint her


The song gets gradually more frantic as it progresses (listen for the way he exists the bridge and the breakdown at the end), and Eddie chants the final lyrics like a mantra or totem, something he has to hold onto and believe in because the consequences of not doing so are too awful to contemplate. We’ve seen these kinds of climaxes in Pearl Jam songs before—the wordless vocalizations expressing a pain beyond words (see the end of Black, Jeremy, I Got Shit, although that one is primarily musical)—a primal hurt that we might never recover from. But at the same time you can almost see Eddie smiling as he’s singing this one, like he knows how ridiculous this all is—the music and the vocals are playful send ups of past moments in their catalog, acknowledging the direction they’d have taken the song in the past, but not this time.


And in that respect I think Johnny Guitar is other side of whatever coin I Got Shit is on. I Got Shit is a desolate portrait of a man consumed by his fantasy, by an unrequited love that’s destroyed his possibility for anything real. It’s a warning. But Johnny Guitar is ultimately a celebratory song. It alludes to something ominous but then turns into a playful riff on those themes. Rather than warn us, it reminds us that there’s nothing harmful about indulging in, or even celebrating our ridiculous fantasies, that our lives are richer and maybe even healthier for having them providing we recognize them for what they are. In a weird way, the ability to let go and be immature here is a sign of maturity


4 stars.

Nice write up, Stipper!

This song is definitely one of my favourites. A better climax to the song would have made this one a classic.

4 stars.

The guitar work on the bridge sounds FILTHY!

At times I like it a lot but I can see this end up being a forgettable song.

well done. still my personal fav off the record. i'm interested to see how well this song ages over time.

favorite part of the song:

I hide my disappointment
Cuz for years I have been hoping
*clapclap*

Good commentary.

I think it's pretty funny at the end, when she comes to visit him in a dream and is real close to him, whispering "Have you seen my Johnny". It's like a slap in the face to the narrator, because he can't even get lucky with the girl in his dream! He's built up this stigma for so long that he can't even allow himself to fantasize about her. Pretty comical for a PJ song. Plus it has some great guitar work, and his vocals in the verses are crazy.

Your lyrics are incorrect without the repeated last line, with the word "comin" in large font as per Ed's delivery.

A fantastic song....in a vein and of a style not typical Pearl Jam. When I said in an earlier thread that I always wanted to sing it as "Johnny he be havin lots of women, he play the geetar on the mtv," it wasn't an insult. Mark Knophler is someone I'm a big fan of, and Brothers in Arms is a remarkably great record.

Musically it's Pearl Jam, but stylistically it's still a crop they've yet to harvest.

When I first bought the record, I thought this song flat out sucked. I considered it to be one of PJ's worst. Then, after a long time and many listens, something just clicked and I completely fell in love with it. Wonderful song. Four stars.

i think a lot of people, even people that like it, consider it a throwaway song or just PJ having some fun. personally, i think its a lot more than that. this is a pretty amazing song with great music and lyrics. it may be humorous, but its also very well made.

its something PJ has never tried before, yet to me it sounds completely natural and effortless. good job, dudes.

sometimes I don't skip it

I absolutely love this song... playful and dark. 4 stars, because the only thing missing is a wacked out guitar solo. I'm not usually bothered about that kind of thing but this song screams for it.

Great write up as usual Stip, almost made the song sound impressive but to me it just sounds bad, two stars.

My favorite off the new album. 5 stars for me.

I'm a man of extremes. I have no problem giving 5 stars to a lot of songs I love. But I also have no problem giving 0 stars to songs I absolutely don't like. This is one of those.

I like this song alot, but I had to give it a 3 when I thought of what I consider a 4 or 5 to be.

Great write-up but this got a big fat 0 for me. i hate it,i always skip past it. the first PJ song ive really disliked! totally missed the boat.....

Didn't grab on to this song at first, but after hearing it live, I liked it a little more. Now it's one of my favs. Stip, nice write-up once again.

I love it, and I always have. I think the exclusion of a really strong outro is all that prevents it from getting a 5.

4 stars.

3 stars

nothin too special but its pretty good. the music does a lot more for me than the lyrics or the vocals.

Pretty much how I feel.

i woke up with this in my head, which has happened alot w/ backspacer songs actually. nothing great, but i really dig ed's delivery, seems pretty rare for him. music is pretty cool too, 3 stars