Johnny 99 (song)

"Johnny 99" is a song written and recorded by rock musician Bruce Springsteen, which first appeared on Springsteen's 1982 solo album Nebraska.
Performance and themes
In "Johnny 99" Springsteen sings about an auto worker who gets laid off in Mahwah, New Jersey and shoots and kills a night clerk while drunk and distraught. As a result, he is apprehended and is sentenced to 99 years in prison, but requests to be executed instead. On the song, Springsteen is accompanied only by his acoustic guitar. Despite the bleakness of the song's themes - including unemployment, poverty, robbery, murder and possibly execution - the tune is ironically jaunty, with a shuffling rockabilly beat.
Like several other songs on the Nebraska album, "Johnny 99" is a song about complete despair. It has direct links with certain songs on Nebraska: the protagonist in "Johnny 99" notes that he has "debts no honest man could pay," repeating a line used...