Johnny B. Goode

"I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

—Marty

Johnny B. Goode was the title of the song performed by Marty McFly and the Starlighters at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance on November 12, 1955. Marty introduced the song as "an oldie", and instructed the band to play a blues riff for a backup. To the audience and the band it was like nothing they had ever heard of before, to which Marvin Berry called his cousin Chuck Berry and let him listen to the new sound. As Marty got more erratic with his guitar playing, the audience and band stopped dancing and covered their ears at his last high note.

1 Back to the Future: The Game
2 Behind the scenes
3 Reference
4 Appearances

Back to the Future: The GameEdit

If you click on the microphone in the Speakeasy, Marty will start to sing Johnny B. Goode onstage, only to stop before the first lyric.^[1]

Behind the scenesEdit

Johnny B. Goode was actually composed and first performed by Chuck Berry in March 1958.

Michael J. Fox's performance of the song is one of the signature moments of Back to the Future. Marty's singing was dubbed by Mark Campbell. Fox asked guitarist Paul Hanson to teach him the precise sequence of chords, so that it would appear that Marty's guitar playing would match with the soundtrack. However, guitarist Tim May, rather than Hanson, recorded the actual music. Hanson appeared on film as the bass guitarist for The Pinheads.

Despite Marty's instructions, both Chuck Berry's original recording and the rendition heard in the film are actually played on a "B flat" blues scale, not "B." Nevertheless, Marty fingers do appear to be playing the song on the "B" blues scale in the film (assuming the guitar is using standard tuning).

On the commentary of the first film, Robert Zemeckis confirmed that the Johnny B. Goode sequence was nearly cut from the finished film.