A Little Gooey Birthday Gift To Johnny Rzeznik (Dec. 5, 2023)

Our contributor Bailey created a video in honor of John’s birthday, which took place on December 5th.

The Goo Goo Dolls’ lead singer and guitarist celebrated his 58th birthday yesterday. Bailey posted a video tribute on YouTube as a gift to both him and to all of our readers. Let’s hear it directly from her:

Hello!

Well, here I am! I made it. I managed to find enough time yesterday to finish Johnny’s birthday gift.

So first off, I need to give a little info. So I decided that this could be of a through the years kind of thing, so I put a bunch of songs together (I’ll give a track listing later on) to pictures of him ranging from age 8 to about 47.

What I’d hoped to do was just share some of the best pictures featured on the video today, just in case I didn’t get a chance to finish my video in time. I did, but I’m still going to do so. Some of these have already been shared with Temple of Goo, but this is kind of a compilation.

As the picture collector, Finding these was amazing. These are all really cool, rare collectibles of Johnny.
This is a preview (there are a lot more featured on the video), but some of my favorites.

The years go as follows: 1974, 1986 (this was back during the very very beginning of the Dolls, probably then Sex Maggots, and may have even been 1985), 1988, 1990, 1991 (the 1993 and 1995 ones got switched up, so the one with Johnny sporting a blue tank top and a bowl cut is 1993) 1993, 1995 (red guitar), 1999, 2001, 2003, 2007. also I’m not 100% sure the 1993 one was actually in the video, but it was meant to be put there

I managed to fit over 30 songs into a 4 minute span, all from all the albums the Goo Goos have been a part of, up until 2010.
Here’s the songs featured in this video:

“Don’t Beat My Ass (With A Baseball Bat)” – 1987

“James Dean” – 1989

“Up Yours” – 1989

“You Know What I Mean” – 1990

“Just The Way You Are” – 1990

“Two Days In February” – 1990

“There You Are” – 1990

“I’m Awake Now” – 1991

“So Far Away” – 1993

“Cuz You’re Gone” – 1993

“On The Lie” – 1993

“Girl Right Next To Me” – 1993

“We Are The Normal” – 1993

“Flat Top” – 1995

“Only One” – 1995

“Ain’t That Unusual” – 1995

“Name” – 1995

“Lazy Eye” – 1997

“Acoustic #3” – 1998

“Hate This Place” – 1998

“Dizzy” – 1998

“All Eyes On Me” – 1998

“Iris” – 1998

“Here Is Gone” – 2002

“Big Machine” – 2002

“Give A Little Bit” – 2004

“All I Want Is You” – 2005

“Become” – 2006

“Postcards From Paradise” – 2010

“Plowed” (Sponge Cover) – 2019

**And for a fellow Gooer Shura, I included the hold me up “wail” from “Just”.

Anyway, here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for: the video….

If Johnny ever sees this, happy birthday, man!

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did making it!
Stay gooey

She also included some of the pictures featured in the video in her message, published below. Some of them are posted in our blog for the first time.

Thanks Bailey as usual for the contribution, much appreciated!