Live 13 Sep 1981 version
[Spoken intro:] Thank you. This is uh... There are certain things in there... certain things in everybody sort of clocks, clocks their lives without ???. And uh... I remember when I was nine years old I'd sit on the living room floor and uh... my mother had on the Ed Sullivan show, and Elvis Presley came on. And now I remember good where I was one day, a friend of mine called me on the phone and told me that he died. And uh... it's hard to understand how somebody, somebody who had so much could in the end lose, lose as bad as he did. And uh... this is a song I wrote... actually I started writing it in 1977, I finished it ???. But this is, this is for Elvis because uh... because he deserves a lot better than he got.
Well she drew out all her money from the Southern Trust
And she put her little boy on a Greyhound bus
Leaving Memphis with a guitar in his hand
With a one-way ticket to the promised land
Now hey little girl with the red dress on
There's a party tonight down in Memphis town
Well I'll be going down there if you need a ride
Come on, come on, let's go tonight
How many have fallen with their dream denied
Now tell me baby are you lonesome tonight
'Cause a man on the radio said Elvis Presley died
Come on, come on, let's go tonight
Well down in Dixie tonight the sky is hard and black
Come on up over the ridge one long white Cadillac
People standing on the roadside waiting in the heat
Bound together forever in the promise of an endless sleep
Well they found him slumped up against the drain
With a whole lot of nothing running through his veins
Well bye-bye Johnny, oh Johnny bye-bye
You didn't have to die, you didn't have to die
The above lyrics are for the live 13 Sep 1981 performance of JOHNNY BYE-BYE at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, OH, during The River Tour. The song was played in a stripped down band arrangement. During this tour JOHNNY BYE-BYE featured lyrics different from the known studio versions of the song. See the official studio version for more details.
This concert was rescheduled from 26 Jul 1981 (see ticket scan above).
List of available versions of JOHNNY BYE-BYE on this website:
JOHNNY BYE-BYE [Official studio version]
