It was "She's A Goddess" that struck me first; the simplicity of the sentiment that Freedy Johnston is expressing was immediately disarming, and the innocent beauty of the lyric had me captivated from the start. I can't help but think that maybe the song is a touch too open, in the process becoming a kind of mission statement that helped dictate every future musical endeavour he embarked upon; there's value in such honesty, certainly, but it can become a millstone around the neck of any artist. One of his earliest songs, it remained unreleased until 2004s The Way I Were, a collection of some of his 4-track recordings dating from 1986 to 1992, which eventually saw the light of day as a stop-gap release. He's never quite achieved the acclaim he might have done, despite seeming to be on the cusp of great things at the beginning of the nineties, with Rolling Stone magazine going so far as to compare him to the likes of Neil Young and Bob Dylan in the wake of his major label debut, This Perfect World. Most reviewers saw it as a step down from 1992s Can I Fly, however, and he never really recovered his momentum.
Fast forward to 2010, and for the first time in almost a decade he finally has a new album of original compositions out. Entitled Rain On The City, the standout track "Don't Fall In Love With A Lonely Girl" seems like the perfect answer song to "She's A Goddess," all these years later. The girl he literally idolised has ultimately proven to be unavailable to him; faced with the folly of his youthful feelings, and the perspective granted by the passage of time, he still sees singing about it as the best thing, the only thing he can do. We should be grateful that he's willing to put himself on display to such an extent, because the results are frequently wonderful.
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