Lyrics to
Johnny B. Goode

This version of Johnny B. Goode was released by John Denver in 1979.

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Way down in Louisiana close to New Orleans, way back in the woods among the evergreens,
there stood a log cabin made or earth and wood,
where lived a country boy name of Johnny B. Goode.
He never ever learned to read or write so well, but he could play a guitar just like a ringing bell.
Go go go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, Johnny B. Goode.

He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack, go sit beneath a tree by the railroad track.
The engineers would see him sitting in the shade strumming to the rhythm that the drivers made.
The people passing by they would stop and say, oh my, but that little country boy can play.
Go go go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, Johnny B. Goode.

Well, his momma told him, “Some day you will be a man.
You will be the leader of a big old band.
Many people coming from miles around just to hear you play your music till the sun goes down.
Maybe someday your name’ll be in lights, saying, ‘Johnny B. Goode tonight.”
Go go go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, Johnny B. Goode.
Go go go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, go Johnny go go, Johnny B. Goode.

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John Denver has released many songs over the years besides Johnny B. Goode. John Denver released songs from 1969 to 1998 spanning across albums like Rhymes And Reasons, Take Me To Tomorrow, Whose Garden Was This?, Poems, Prayers And Promises, Aerie, Rocky Mountain High, Farewell Andromeda, Back Home Again, Rocky Mountain Christmas, An Evening With John Denver, Windsong, Spirit, I Want To Live, A Christmas Together, John Denver, Autograph, Some Days Are Diamonds, Seasons Of The Heart, Rocky Mountain Holiday, It's About Time, Dreamland Express, One World, Higher Ground, The Flower That Shattered The Stone, Christmas, Like A Lullaby, Different Directions, All Aboard!, and Forever, John. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by John Denver.

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About Lyrics and Johnny B. Goode by John Denver

The lyrics to Johnny B. Goode are just the words, phrases, verses and chorus that John Denver used when the song was created in 1979. The lyrics to Johnny B. Goode have both easy-to-spot meanings and hidden metaphors that have been discussed by the music press and fans, but only John Denver and any collaborators know all of the inspirations for the song.

If you like etymology or breaking apart phrases and words, it is easy to understand the lyrics to Johnny B. Goode by John Denver. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Johnny B. Goode" means the words set to the music of Johnny B. Goode, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by John Denver. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Johnny B. Goode and the lyrics to Johnny B. Goode are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of John Denver who came here looking just for the lyrics to Johnny B. Goode, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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