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.
Despite the bleakness of the song's themes - including unemployment, poverty, robbery, murder and possibly execution - the tune is ironically jaunty,[4] with a shuffling rockabilly beat.
[4] Like the rest of the Nebraska album, "Johnny 99" was recorded in January 1982 in a no-frills studio set up in Springsteen's home in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
[8] The background of the song is based on a real-life occurrence, the 1980 closure of a Ford Motor Company plant in Mahwah, which had been open since 1955.
[3][10] During a September 21, 1984 Born in the U.S.A. Tour concert in Pittsburgh, Springsteen used the introduction to "Johnny 99" to respond to President Reagan referencing the message of hope in Bruce Springsteen's songs, stating "The president was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been.
In praising the album Nebraska, "Johnny 99" is one of the songs that was singled out by Mikal Gilmore of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.