Bye Bye Johnny

Composer: Chuck Berry       

Original performer: Chuck Berry (1960)

Recorded in De Lane Lea Studios,  (London)  November -63
First release UK EP, January 1964   First US release: More Hot Rocks, 1972

Performed onstage: 1963-65, 1972, 1986
 

 

Mick Jagger: Lead vocal 
Keith Richards: Lead electric guitar
Brian Jones: Rhythm electric guitar
Bill Wyman: Bass
Charlie Watts: Drums
Mick Jagger & Keith Richards: Background vocals 
 

 Lyric:

Well she drew all her money out from Southern Trust
And put her little boy aboard a Greyhound bus
Leaving Louisiana for the golden West
Down came her tears from her happiness
Her own little son named Johnny B. Goode
Was going to make some motion pictures out in Hollywood

Bye bye, bye bye
Bye bye Johnny, bye bye Johnny B. Goode

Well she remembered taking money out from gathering crops
And buying Johnny's guitar at a broker shop
As long as he could play it by the railroad side
And wouldn't get in trouble, she'd be satisfied
But never thought there'd ever come a day like this
When she would gladly give her son a goodbye kiss

Well she finally got the letter she'd been dreaming of
Johnny wrote and told her he had fell in love
As soon as he was married he would bring her back
And build a mansion for her by the railroad track
And every time they heard the locomotive roar
They'd be standing, waving in the kitchen door