JOHNNY GO DOWN is an unreleased Bruce Springsteen song. According to Sony's logs of Bruce Springsteen's studio sessions, the song was recorded on 09 and 12 Mar 1983 at Thrill Hill West, Springsteen's home studio in Los Angeles, CA.
In his 2012 book E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days Of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clinton Heylin wrote that the song was initially titled "Johnny Cool Down", it was marked as "new idea" on the 09 Mar 1983 reel, and is clearly not JOHNNY BYE-BYE. It ended up on a 24-track "mix" tape with three other songs, DON'T BACK DOWN, JAMES LINCOLN DEER, and LOSIN' KIND.
JOHNNY GO DOWN is among 25 songs compiled for a 1993 project that never came to fruition. See the "1993 Concept Album" section below for more details.
In his 2012 book E Street Shuffle: The Glory Days Of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Clinton Heylin revealed that in 1993 a 25-song compilation was produced for an archival project, which presumably became the Tracks box set released in 1998. According to Brucebase, the archival concept "album" was produced in-house, presumably following the conclusion of World Tour 1992-1993, perhaps to demonstrate the quality of Springsteen's unreleased archive.
Many of these 25 songs have been subsequently released, either on the Tracks box set or as part of other projects, and some others are known outtakes that are yet to circulate among fans. However, two are only known from this 25-song list: ARNIE and THAT'S OKAY.
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List of available versions of JOHNNY GO DOWN on this website:
JOHNNY GO DOWN