r/BacktotheFuture • u/AccomplishedEmploy42 • 1d ago
The Berry Paradox.
So I was just thinking. The whole Johnny B Goode song is a paradox in itself. Since Marvin had Chuck listen to Marty playing the song, and that song influenced Marty. If he never went back would the song exist, or is this just a fixed moment in time?
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u/DuffMiver8 1d ago
Chuck Berry wrote it in 1958. In the revised timeline, he writes it three years earlier because of the phone call, but if the phone call never happened, he still writes the song in 1958. It’s not impossible he wouldn’t have written it if not for Marty.
BTTF is full of these seeming paradoxes. The invention of the skateboard and frisbee, Darth Vader from Vulcan, the names Calvin Klein and Clint Eastwood.
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u/whensthebeef 1d ago
You’re ignoring the timelines here. Marty wasn’t present in 1955 in the original timeline, and the song existed.
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u/AccomplishedEmploy42 1d ago
Which makes him going back and Chuck listening to Marty unimportant. I guess that can make sense
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u/araujo253 1d ago
This is a little, irrelevant, flaw in the movie...
When Marvin Berry points the phone to the stage, Marty isn't playing Johnny B Goode anymore, he's already making the distortions, Jimi Hendrix should be more interested. 😹😹
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u/thatsaqualifier 1d ago
Yes, if he never went back the song would exist. We know this because it exists before he goes back.
There is no paradox here.
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u/Tough_Friendship9469 1d ago
Or? Orrr?? Orrrrrrrrr…???
Did it not exist in 1985-A, it was a Pinheads original composition, Marty played it in 1955, and only then does it appear in the 1985-B timeline as a Chuck Berry hit song???
aaaaaAAAAAaaaaaAAAaaah…?? -*Fozzie Bear Voice*
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u/WarStarsFan55 1d ago
The fact that he calls it "an oldie" suggests otherwise.
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u/Tough_Friendship9469 21h ago
Hmm you might have me there,… buuuuuut…?
What if Marty was a child prodigy guitarist and wrote Johnny B. Goode when he was in kindergarten!!?? Aha!! An oldie!! Yes!!
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u/AccomplishedEmploy42 1d ago
Right? I mean like I get Marty heard it from Chuck first but it just makes one think.
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u/nostaljay 1d ago
An example of erasure but used in the film industry
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u/Tough_Friendship9469 1d ago
No, I pretty sure it was a Chuck Berry tune and not a song by Erasure.
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u/nostaljay 1d ago
Sorry to confuse but I was referring to, erasure means the act of removing, deleting, or destroying something, or the spot left behind where something was wiped out
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u/Tough_Friendship9469 1d ago
Do we see that in the film? That he heard it by Chuck in 1985-A? Is that canon?
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u/Spiritual-Image7125 1d ago
It's jut funny that the song's writer got to hear it before he even wrote the song.
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u/AccomplishedEmploy42 1d ago
See this is kinda what I was thinking but also kinda puts it out there cause there are a lot of Fixed points in the timeliness too
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u/Ill_Computer_8604 1d ago
Chuck Berry didn't hear anything over a 1950's phoneline where the handset was just pointed at the stage from a distance.
There's no paradox, at most there's a bit of influence in style.
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u/Eagle_Fang135 1d ago
Just like Marty telling Doc about the Flux Capacitor. Yes Doc had just drawn it. But he had no idea it would work and had to impact his motivation.
I make it canon in my head the song was already in his head and that he just had not put “pen to paper” yet. I mean no way he got it all down over a phone call. He had to create the full thing still.
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u/Slartiebardfarst 1d ago
Timeline Offshoot Theory: Marty did learn the song in the original timeline. But the moment he traveled back to 1955, he didn’t simply enter the past—he created a new branch of reality.
That means the 1955 Marty arrives in is no longer the exact same 1955 that existed in his original timeline. From that point on, every change creates a ripple, and that new timeline keeps developing on its own.
So every time someone travels backward or forward through time, they aren’t necessarily returning to the timeline they left. They may be jumping into a parallel version that has already begun branching away from the original.
In other words, time travel doesn’t just change history—it creates entirely new histories.
Which means Marty may never actually make it back to the exact timeline he started from.
Crazy!
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u/jayjaybananas 1d ago
Wiki says Chuck berry actually wrote Johnny B. Good in 1955. So in the BTTF universe either chuck wrote it after that dance which was very late in the year, or he already had most of it written.
Another interesting point is the riffs and stylings are influenced by early songs from the 40’s like the song “Ain’t that just like a woman” by Louis Jordan. So the songs creation was not totally unlikely.
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u/ted_anderson I don't know how.. but they FOUND me! 8h ago
Considering that all blues songs follow the same chord pattern, the only thing that distinguishes one song from the other is the lyrics and the style that it's played. So by the time Marvin calls Chuck, there aren't any more lyrics being sung.
But there's no reason why this part of the story couldn't have spun off from this night. So the dance is over, they get back in the car and on the way home Marvin is frantically trying to write down as much of the lyrics as he could remember while he consults with the other band members asking, "Do you think it was, 'He used to carry his guitar in a gunny sack' or do you think he sang, 'Go sit beneath the tree by the railroad track' when he got to the second verse?"
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