Johnny Guitar Lyrics Pearl Jam

Johnny Guitar Lyrics from the Pearl Jam Album: Backspacer

Johnny Guitar Lyrics were written by the combination of Vedder/Cameron/Gossard.

Eddie Vedder was inspired to write the lyrics for "Johnny Guitar" after viewing a collage of album covers that is pasted on the bathroom wall of Pearl Jam's rehearsal area. Eddie noticed the album cover for Johnny "Guitar" Watson's 1979 album, What the Hell Is This?, and imagined a man who becomes attracted to one of the various women on the cover and then wonders why this woman would rather be one of Watson's many girlfriends instead of his only one. Yup....

Lyrics:

Johnny Guitar Watson staring 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 & lingering

Now Johnny he be having lots of women
The reason he be smiling known 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 w/the light on,.. In case she comes
And I sleep w/the light on,.. In case she

Recently as I was waiting 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 hoping
Oh yeh how I had been hoping
That when she came, she would come for me

I hide my disappointment
Cause for years I had been hoping
that when she came,
she'd be coming just for me

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