“Be Good Johnny” by Men At Work

"Be Good Johnny" was the third and last single from Business as Usual, the 1981 debut by Australia's Men at Work, released in April 1982, and it's a cheeky little character study. The song looks at the world through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy nagged endlessly to behave, who would rather daydream than pay attention in class or play sport, and who feels the grown-ups have him completely wrong. Its title winks at Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode".

Colin Hay wrote the words and co-wrote the music with keyboardist Greg Ham, and as lead singer he plays the whole cast, bending his voice into Johnny, the boy's mother and father and his teacher, while Ham chips in with spoken lines trying to work the kid out. Peter McIan produced. Hay later recut it solo for Man @ Work, and that version became the theme for the American Supernanny.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.