‘Johnny 99.’

Johnny 99, Bruce Springsteen

…Dammit, Bruce. Judge Brown may have been mean, but it was flat-out Murder 2 and everybody knew it. What the hell was the man supposed to do? Nobody forced Johnny to get drunk, grab a gun, and you know, shoot a night clerk. You remember the night clerk, right, Bruce? Where’s his song?

Sorry. This has been bugging me all damned day.

Moe Lane

PS: I concede that 99 years for Murder 2 is a bit much, but that’s artistic license: Johnny “Thirty Years to Life” (which would be the more likely sentence in New Jersey) doesn’t scan as well.

3 thoughts on “‘Johnny 99.’”

  1. 35 years later it astounds me not so much that Johnny Cash covered this and “Highway Patrolman” — these, I well understand — but that he never got around to covering “I’m On Fire.” Which is clearly an homage.

    1. To be fair, while “I’m on Fire” may indeedhomage “Ring of Fire”
      .
      .. which was a June Carter Cash song written for Johnny Cash to sing …
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      … the Springsteen protagonist, if you listen to the lyrics, is a serious mess ..
      .
      I can see not wanting to sing that about myself.
      .
      Mew

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