Billy, Johnny and Tommy

Who are Billy, Johnny and Tommy? They seem to appear everywhere throughout popular culture. Whether it’s Dylan’s Johnny mixing medicine in the basement, or Chuck Berry’s Johnny going across the town with his guitar, destined to be the leader of a big old band. The Fine Young Cannibals wanted to apologise to their Johnny, and wanted him to come on home, whilst U2 sing about a Johnny looking for spiritual enlightenment and self fulfilment and Dire Straits have their Johnny busking away like Chuck Berry’s, trying to make an honest living and get somewhere in life.

Bon Jovi’s Tommy is having problems with the union and subsequently losing his job at the docks, The Who’s Tommy witnesses murder, becomes blind, deaf and dumb, gets shipped around between social care and family members, gets sexually abused, becomes a pinball champion and then regains his lost senses, The Clash’s Tommy is a gun-runner, whilst in “Tell Laura I Love Her”, Tommy dies in a stock car race.

Meanwhile, Bob Geldof is telling Billy to take a walk, to take a walk, to take a wa-lk and get away from the town he’s trapped in, Paper Lace don’t want Billy to be a hero and don’t want him to fight in Vietnam, Bill Withers’ grandmother doesn’t want him to run so fast, in case he falls on a piece of glass, Sheryl Crow’s Billy likes to peel the labels of his branded beer bottles and waste his time away drinking and lighting matches.

Are Billy, Johnny and Tommy literary embodiments of the songwriters themselves, without saying “me”, “we” or “I”? Do they exist as a part of the songwriters personality or past? Or are they an attempt to allow us to connect to our rockstar heroes, no matter how far away their world is to ours? Are we supposed to associate with Tommy, because he’s blue collar like us? Because he, like us, has lost his job? Because we’re also down on our luck, and it’s tough, so tough. Or is it all a desperate attempt for people like Jon Bon Jovi to try and associate and connect with us, rather than us desperately trying to associate and connect to our unattainable hero.

Sitting in his mansion, does Bon Jovi secretly wish he was just like us, does he seriously wish he’d get paid off and have to live on Pek and beetroot sandwiches, bubble and squeak on Monday to Wednesdays, and a piece of fish with ammonia on, if you’re lucky, on fry up Friday. Or is being seen as a working class hero, in workman clothes a la Springsteen, just a great marketing angle?

The Who try to cover all of the bases with their rock opera, to try and make sure that something exists that everyone can find an allegiance with. Poor Tommy goes through the mill at the hands of Daltrey and rock paedo Townsend. Although we don’t all witness murders in mirrors and consequently lose the use of our senses, we all, as music lovers, have that primal lust that resonates through us when we listen to our favourite bands, or reminisce about the good old days when we hear a song from an album released many years ago. And that’s the key with The Who’s Tommy. He is deaf, dumb and blind, but he still has an association with the music, he doesn’t know what it is, much like the rest of us, but it stirs something wonderful up inside of him, something indescribable, yet wonderful.

Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode”, embodies all of our hopes and dreams, carrying our burdens on his back, along with his guitar, chasing a dream, trying to aspire to everything that we want. Johnny wants to end up with his name in lights in the same way that we might want to end up being married with a nice house and kids, in the same way that we might really want that promotion at work, in the same way that we might want to eventually meet the girl/boy of our dreams.

And Johnny B. Goode is not just exactly like us, he’s exactly like Tommy from the docks in “Livin’ On A Prayer”, he’s exactly like Billy from The Boomtown Rats’ “Rat Trap”. They’re all stuck in nowhere towns, all experiencing shifting social changes and upheavals, all having dreams to follow but with so many political and economical obstacles in their way. Johnny lives in a basic little log cabin made from earth and wood, he can’t even read or write very well. But he has a talent that can make him fulfil his wishes. Tommy may have a limited education, he’s definitely working class, he’s working in the docks, whilst the love of his life works in a diner. The pair of them work as hard as possible to get through life, they may not be the most talented individuals, or the most intelligent, but they’ve got each other and that’s enough. Whereas Billy needs to escape his town, he isn’t going anywhere and it’s running him down and holding him back, he needs to be free, to pursue his personal happiness. For Tommy, his relationship is more important than the music is to Johnny, cashing in his guitar, whilst Gina dreams of running away, just like Billy does, and just like The Fine Young Cannibals’ Johnny.

Sometimes it isn’t just about us, though. Sometimes, Johnny is literally a well known person called John, rather than a generic person who we can associate with. “Mysterious Ways” by U2 is said to be about John The Baptist, The Libertines’ “The Boy Looked At Johnny” is said to be about Johnny Borell from Razorlight, whilst other Johnny references are often attributed to John Lennon.

Maybe it’s a rockstars vain attempt at ushering in social change? Bob Dylan’s Johnny is too busy fucking about making drugs to sell, whilst Bob is standing on the pavement, thinking about the government and taking advice from the various passers-by about what the government has done to them and what the government is capable of.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe Billy, Johnny and Tommy are used as tools, the personification of ideas, to make us think, to make us have a bit more self awareness. Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, suggests that Johnny is an idiot. He’s down there in the basement, fucking about, destroying his mind, when he should be out on the streets, or at least out somewhere, educating himself. The Clash’s “Tommy Gun” illustrates Tommy as an idiot as well. A man waiting round at an airport, dealing in small arms, it’s eventually going to be his downfall, as Joe Strummer lets us know the errors of Tommy’s ways. And then we have Sheryl Crow’s Billy. Sitting around in bars, wasting his time, and going through bottle after bottle, whilst over the road, people are making an honest living for themselves, cleaning cars or working for record companies.

What does the future hold for Billy, Johnny and Tommy? Will we soon have songs with the lyrics, “Johnny’s caught an STD after fucking some lass off MySpace”, “Billy’s gone and bombed a mosque”, “Tommy has been unable to find a job, has started to suffer from depression and has taken up heroin, since losing his job to a Polish immigrant”, or will it be more like social messages, with, "Johnny's in the crackhouse getting a blowjob off some crackwhore, I'm on the pavement thinking about my carbon footprint".

Billy, Johnny and Tommy do exist somewhere, whether it’s in that milieu between our bedrooms and the television screen, or the space between our nine to five jobs and the arena, they exist somewhere in our imaginations as the people who we aspire to be, giving us hope, or as the people who we feel the same as, symbolising all of our inadequacies and fuck ups.

Maybe Billy, Johnny and Tommy are just like us, or maybe lyrically, they just work better than David, Steven and Michael.



Here's Marty McFly inventing rock and roll, as played by Parkinson's hero Michael J Fox.......