Songfacts®:

• "Strung Out Johnny" is a candid and unvarnished portrayal of addiction. Iggy Pop illustrates how initially innocuous drug experiments can escalate into something perilous.
• Iggy Pop recorded the track with producer Andrew Watt, who has previously worked with the likes of Ozzy Osbourne, Post Malone and Justin Bieber. When Watt sent Pop the song with a provisional title of "Strung Out Johnny," the rocker immediately connected with the subject matter and felt he could add a personal touch to the lyrics. "I'm singing it to the archetypal Johnny, the universal young man," Pop explained to Apple Music. "I wanted to sing to him about how it goes-step one, step two, step three, and then you're f---ed. But I wanted to put myself in there too, so the song would be a little warmer and more sincere."
• An all-star band backs Pop on the song. It comprises Watt on guitar, bass and keyboards, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith on drums and percussion and Smith's ex Chili Peppers bandmate Josh Klinghoffer on guitar, piano and keyboards.
• "Strung Out Johnny" finds former junkie Iggy Pop singing to a current junkie. "It's not so much a warning," he told Mojo magazine. "I wanted to encapsulate exactly what happens. Y'know, like you had the seven stages of man, I have the three stages of junkiedom (laughs).
  
  First you do it with your friends and that's the first phrase, really. Then at some point, you go, 'I wonder what this will be like, if I just go off and do it by myself? I think I'll just sit in bed and see what happens.' That's the second phase. All of a sudden, you're a stoned loner.
  
  Then the third phase is, Oh, s--t. I haven't got any and I don't feel good. You can't get enough, y'know, and then you lose your entrée to the other members of the race."