Factory in New York City. Titled "Dummy", it featured different lyrics, such as "I'm afraid of the animals" instead of "Americans". Eno recalled in 2016: "I remember [David] recording 'I'm Afraid of Americans' and saying, after one of the early takes, 'No, [the 'Dummy' character's] got to be more self-doubting than that.'" This version was intended for release on the soundtrack for the 1995 film Johnny Mnemonic but was instead released on the soundtrack for the 1995 film Showgirls. During the sessions for his next album Earthling (1997), Bowie decided to remake the song with his current band—guitarist Reeves Gabrels, pianist Mike Garson, bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and drummer Zack Alford. Bowie stated: "That was something that Eno and I put together, and I just didn't feel it fit Outside, so it didn't go on it. It just got left behind. So then we took just the embryo of it, and restructured it with this band." Recording for the remake took place between August and October 1996 at Looking Glass Studios in New York City with engineer Mark Plati, who had extensive experience there. Plati and Gabrels were credited as co-producers while Bowie himself mostly self-produced. Regarding the remake, Plati explained: "We pulled things off several different reels to make this new composite. It was quite a clean-up job, not the most enjoyable." Bowie revised the lyrics, changing "Dummy" to "Johnny", and transposed verses while the band provided additional overdubs. Gabrels stated that he added fuzz boxes "until I ran out". Composition In an interview with Mojo magazine in 1997, Bowie described the song as "one of those stereotypical 'Johnny' songs: Johnny does this, Johnny does that". The absurdist lyrics present a critique of America, in line with Bowie's 1975 track "Young Americans". Commentators have insighted similarities between the song's titular 'Johnny' and the 'Johnny' of the Lodger track "Repetition" (1979); while the 'Johnny' of the former craves objects of status through self-entitlement, the 'Johnny' of the latter emotionally abuses his wife due to his lower status. The song concludes with the revelation that "God is an American", which biographer Marc Spitz considers an "ironic jingoism". Musically, reviewers have categorised it as techno, with author James Perone writing that it mixes various industrial and techno styles of the 1980s and 1990s. The Guardians Caroline Sullivan found the melody reminiscent of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" (1980), with a "perky jungle percussion