Daniel Johnston

Johnston (born in 1961 in Sacramento) started out as a songwriter in West Virginia, but in 1984 relocated to Austin (Texas).

The first document of his solipsistic vaudeville was the splendid cassette Songs Of Pain (Stress, 1981), an amateurish recording of just voice and piano. Best typified by the ragtime piano and crackling voice of Grievances, his style ranged from childish stories sung like melodramatic sagas (A Little Story) to funny parables sung like spirituals (Never Relaxed), from imitation of grand pop (An Idiot's End) to frenzied rock'n'roll (Premarital Sex). He can be more hilarious than a professional comedian (Brainwash) and catchier than the Beatles (Wicked World). When he runs out of melodic ideas, he simply hammers on the keys of the piano (I Save Cigarette Butts), and, when he runs out of humour, he closes the album with the bleakly philosophical Hate Song.
Johnston was clearly a prolific and gifted songwriter and composer of melodies; an eloquent and, in his own way, elegant bard who was not afraid of making fun of the world in a way that, ultimately, makes fun of the prankster himself. His art was sincere primitivism for the sake of being a living nonsense. His comic vignettes (reminiscent of Jonathan Richman)

More songs of this kind appeared on another cassette, Don't Be Scared (Stress, 1982): Going Down, Lost Without a Dame, Harley Man, Evening Stars, Cold Hard World, I Had a Dream, The Story of an Artist, My Yoke Is Heavy, Stars on Parade, And You Love It, I Had Lost My Mind, The Sun Shines Down on Me, Loner, Don't Be Scared, Lullaby, I Was Alone, Mother Mom Said.

The What Of Whom (Stress, 1982) included: Man Obsessed, Peek-a-boo, Never Before/Never Again, The Goldfish & the Frog, Scuttle-butt, Heart, Mind, & Soul, Blue Clouds, Surely You Don't Work All Night, I Can't Think Anymore, Excuse Me, Polka Dot Rag, Why/Without You, An Incoherent Speech, Wicked World, To Go Home, Scrambled Eggs, Peace & Tranquility, When You're Pretty,

More Songs Of Pain (Stress, 1983) was conceived as the ideal second part of his first collection, but failed to live up to that standard. The sound of the piano is as antiquated as ever, but the melodies are less charming, mostly evoking bar songs for lonely drunk people (Phantom of My Own Opera, Only Missing You). Moments of blessed madness such as You're Gonna Make It Joe, a few instances of great piano playing (True Grief a` la Jerry Lee Lewis, Mabel's Grievances), the bluesy Blue Cloud and the plaintive Follow That Dream are nonetheless worthy of his best material. However, too many of the songs are mere fragments, and the background voices get a bit annoying over the long run.

The Early Recordings Volume 1 (Dualtone, 2003) collects Songs Of Pain 1980-83 and More Songs Of Pain.

On top of the "official" cassettes, Johnston also released two volumes of The Lost Recordings (Stress, 1991), also dating from 1983,.

His first vinyl was Hi How Are You (Stress, 1986 – Homestead, 1988), recorded in 1983, a fine document of this music amateur, heir to the many Wild Man Fishers who have traversed rock history. Partly autobiographical in the manner of Jonathan Richman, almost always brilliant in his arrangements (extremely sparse, even using an old jazz record as accompaniment), Johnston has an innate talent for melody. Walking The Cow and She Called Pest Control are among his early gems.

The double album Yip/Jump Music (Stress, 1986 – Homestead, 1989 – Eternal Yip Eye, 2006), also recorded in 1983, is one of his most important works: an hour and a half of music for close friends, sung in his prepubescent register and recorded with a strong background hiss and an archaic organ timbre, evoking a fin-de-siècle atmosphere. The Chord Organ Blues for harmonica and carpet beater, the surf-style tune Speeding Motorcycle, and the Neil Young-like lament of Don't Let The Sun Go Down are tributes to the ingenuity of the poor. The lyrics hold much of the charm, not only the bizarre meditations on the human condition in Worried Shoes and the tender confessions of I Live For Love: the most (inadvertently) amusing creations are the ballad King Kong, sung a cappella in the tone of a funeral sermon (later interpreted also by Jad Fair), and the countdown in Rocket Ship, which conveys the sensation of liftoff (later interpreted by the Dead Milkmen as well). After surveying almost everything that troubles humankind, Johnston offers a Franciscan ode to God, the quintessence of his innocent philosophy: "I'm glad God made me/ because I love the stars/ and I love the moon/ and I love the Earth too/ I love the God/ that made all these things".

The cassette Retired Boxer (Stress, 1984) contains nine songs.

Respect (Stress, 1985) contains 18 songs, notably the sermons of An Angel Cry and Just Like A Widow.

Continued Story (Homestead, 1991), a cassette recorded in 1985 (partly with the band Texas Instruments), contains It's Over, Funeral Home and Lady In The Radiator.

A reissue joined two albums: Continued Story + Hi How Are You (Eternal Yip Eye, 2006).

The years following 1985 were turbulent. Only faint echoes of the music he produced during that time have survived: the EPs Big Big World (Seminal Twang, 1991) and Laurie (Seminal Twang, 1992).

After a 1989 untitled album with Jad Fair (for 50 Skidillion Watts), later reissued as It's Spooky (Paperhouse, 1993 – Jagjaguwar, 2001), 1990 finally arrived. Embracing a dark demonic theme, Johnston hones his eccentric songbook, which, however, is not that mad: it paints sinister metaphysical proclamations like Spirit World Rising (six minutes of just voice and guitar), moving gospel prayers like Lord Give Me Hope (six minutes of only voice and piano), and timid confessions of insecurity like Some Things Last A Long Time (with a melody that could belong to the Beatles, if only it had a real arrangement). These are jewels of solipsism freely inspired by the savory introspection of the blues, though a blues related to the primal exorcisms of Taj Mahal (Don't Play Cards With Satan). A grim philosopher of the human condition, Johnston is far from the carefree jester he appears to be with his eccentricities. A refined craftsman of songs, he is not even the approximate amateur his modesty might suggest.

One of his songs, Do It Right, appeared also on Marueen Tucker's album Life In Exile After Abdication.

After the single Speeding Motorcycle (with Yo La Tengo), Artistic Vice (Shimmy Disc, 1992) continues Johnston’s progression toward a more accessible sound. It is the most professional album of his career and also one of the happiest. Backed by a full accompanying band, Johnston launches into the driving rock and roll of My Life Is Starting Over, mimics Zevon’s powerful martial cadence on Happy Soul, and brushes against the obsessive drive of the Velvet Underground on Fate Will Get Done.
Yet Johnston’s pure spirit is immediately recognizable, even though the music has matured: he sings Honey I Sure Miss You with the simplicity and sincerity of an elementary-school song to one’s mother, and mourns Laurie in a heartfelt waltz. He is well-suited to the carefree melodicism of the 1960s, a style in which he paints two gems: Love Of My Life and Tell Me Know. Electricity, in short, has not ruined his naïve art—it has made it bloom.

At the end of 1992, the premiere of his ballet Love Defined was performed, with music largely drawn from Yip/Jump Music.

The progression toward a more professional sound continued on Fun (Atlantic, 1994), alongside his growing fame (with fans including Kurt Cobain). Thanks to the accompaniment of two Butthole Surfers (Paul Leary and King Coffey), plus Regina Carter’s violin and John Hagen’s cello, the melodic talent of this solitary heart turned accidental musician now takes center stage: Love Wheel, Foxy Girl, and Lousy Weekend showcase top-notch hooks and counterpoints.
Without renouncing his humble musical origins (a folk lament in Life In Vain, the dragging blues of Catie) or his childlike spirit (the wild nursery rhyme of Happy Time, the piano rag of Love Will See You Through), Johnston carves out a place among modern singer-songwriters. And it’s a unique place, because in a period when cryptic lyrics are fashionable, he sings whatever comes to mind without a second thought. Lacking any overarching vision of the human condition, Johnston establishes himself as the quintessential visionary: “Well I've had horrors/ and I've had a lot of fear/ but the worst horror/ is when there's nothing here.”

In 1995 Gibby Haines used Johnston's I Save Cigarette Butts for his album P. An irreverent appropriation of Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech is set to a boogie rhythm.

Dream Scream (Pickled Egg, 1999) is a great pop song, but it confirmed the man's state of isolation.

The Lucky Sperms (Jagjaguwar, 2001) is a new collaboration with Jad Fair.

Equal parts catchy ditties (Love Forever, Party) and crazy romps (Funeral Girl, The Spook, Some Time Spent In Heaven), Rejected Unknown (Pickled Egg, 2000) summarizes Johnston's art and persona, without adding anything significant to a long and gloriously demented career. The haphazard collections was assembled (and co-written) by Glass Eye member Brian Beattie.

Daniel Johnston's career was revitalized by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, whose arrangements (and Alan Weatherhead's) helped Fear Yourself (Gammon, 2003) become one of Johnston's most accomplished, eclectic and eccentric albums ever. The collection, which flows like a fast-paced parade of musical vignettes, opens with a demented rant accompany by frenzied ukulele-like guitar strumming that suddenly mutates into a majestic lament (Now). Syrup Of Tears borrows the grand piano, the timpani, the strings from Jim Steinman's operatic rock, and the glossy melodrama from David Bowie's glam-rock. Another orchestral zenith of pathos, Love Enchanter, explores that mood, as does the grandiloquent Power Of Love, while Must takes that idea and turns into a magnificent love song, whose chorus soars like a religious hymn.
Less intense, but no less austere, and equally compelling, Forever Your Love straddles the line between tragic and comic, with a restless piano that echoes old-fashioned pianolas and a French horn that seems to rehearse funeral music.
Linkous and Johnston take a break or two from these emotional depths, which are veritable cathartic baths, with the innocuous, country-tinged, power-pop of Mountain Top, the simple, choral pub-song of Fish (Elvis Costello meets the Mekons), the lightning-speed boogie of Love Not Dead (with echoes of the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Tom Petty), and the upbeat, loud, rocking manifesto of Living it For The Moment. When it picks up speed and volume, the combo is no less effective than when it moans in the background.
Johnson has never been so focused and so determined. Linkous has dressed up his songs so that they deliver the full impact of Johnston's emotions.

Welcome to My World (High Wire, 2006) is a career retrospective.

Johnston made his first awful album at the age of 45: Lost and Found (Sketchbook, 2006). These songs were probably not rehearsed much. Some of them sound like previous Johnston songs, just less astute and less intense. Overall, one has the feeling that Johnston made the album that people expected him to make. The distance between an insincere gesture and a self-parody is very short.

Hyperjinx Tricycle (2001) is a Daniel Johnston side project that features Ron English and Jack Medicine that also released the four-song EP Alien Mind Control (2003). The Electric Ghosts (Important, 2006) is another collaboration with Medicine.

Jellyfish's Jason Falkner produced, arranged and personally played most instruments on Is And Always Was (2009), Johnston's glossy "pop" album, but tunes like Without You and Is And Always Was just don't seem to harmonize well with his spirit and his voice. Queenie The Doggie and Fake Records of Rock and Roll would do well on a Todd Rundgren album. I Had Lost My Mind originally appeared on Don't Be Scared.

Daniel Johnston died in 2019 of a heart attack at the age of 58.