Daniel Johnston has spent the last 30 years or so exposing his heartrending tales of unrequited love, cosmic mishaps and existential torment to an ever-growing international cult audience. A healthy number of discerning musicians including David Bowie, Kurt Cobain and the Butthole Surfers are cited as fans. Johnston has been plagued nearly his entire life with chronic mental illness and despite recurrent bouts of delusional behavior endangering himself and others, he has carved out a respectable, influential career as a singer-songwriter of extraordinary talent. His first crudely recorded cassette was released in 1980.

Until the ’90s, Johnston’s recording were basically homemade affairs, his plain voice accompanied by crude piano and guitar playing. His narrative concerns focused mainly on lost love, the pain of miscommunication, his love for the Beatles, and comic-book superhero Captain America. Johnston’s music is unflinchingly direct, almost embarrassingly and painfully honest. Because of this and his increasingly erratic behavior, he was considered a local hero in his home of Austin, TX (where he moved from rural West Virginia), but too extreme to engender the interest of a record label. His self-released cassette recordings began showing up in hip record stores from Boston to L.A. There was, however, a grim side to this “success,” as if his mental illness was the primary component of his popularity; therefore, there was a feeling that those not close to him were marketing his illness as much as his talent. Sadly, Johnston’s behavior wasn’t helping, and he was institutionalized twice in the late ’80s after his refusal to take medication.

There are regular simpering testimonials swarming from the oddest sources such as Matt Groening, Eddie Vedder and Yo La Tengo – making Johnston sound less like a favourite songwriter and more like a pet cause. His celebrity fans are understandably interested in giving him exposure, but they also boost their own image with outsider chic. Their main accomplishment seems to be forever interlocking Jonhston’s music with his famed manic depression. It’s condescending to a man creating simple and lovely songs, implicitly painting Johnston as helpless and his art in need of patronage.

Johnston’s most vital music was recorded alone, on a weight bench, in his brother’s garage, with a chord organ and a boombox microphone. This was before bipolar disorder had truly exploded on him and seized control of his life. The music is hard to separate from the way you hear it – the tape his, vulnerable voice, the excitement of hearing someone else’s strange pretty world, from boombox to boombox. Songs of Pain is the first album, recorded on a simple tape recorder and released on Compact Cassette. They were originally handed out to friends. All songs feature Johnston on vocals and piano. The opening track “Grievances”, introduces themes which recur throughout his career. He sings about unrequited love to “the librarian”. Other themes on the album are premarital sex “Joy Without Pleasure” and “Premarital Sex”, Christianity “A Little Story”, and the dangers of marijuana “Pot Head”. Between some songs you can hear Daniel’s mother screaming at him that he will never make anything of himself. You can download that original recording which set everything in motion, here.

Johnston is also an aspiring cartoonist – his playful, symbol-heavy sketches have graced the covers of many of his releases. The “Hi, How Are You?” drawing was made famous by being worn prolifically by Kurt Cobain. Both songs and drawings are informed to some degree by his struggle with manic depression, which can lend an added poignancy. The finished results of Johnston’s Lo-Fi tomfoolery have been covered by such seminal indie acts as Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Yo La Tengo, Butthole Surfers and Half Japanese to name a few. Johnston’s vivacious pop songs are usually laden with chiming guitar, clunky keyboards, distant rhythms, and a sometimes sinister, sometimes child-like perspective on life. Johnston often seems too lost in his own condition to write jaded and cynical songs.

Although he sometimes he does become sad and bitter, cynicism and self-pity aren’t his style, and that makes the little tragedies and epiphanies he writes about all the more compelling. Daniel Johnston’s world may seem small, but it’s much bigger and friendlier than that of our wildest imaginations. “Things have turned out all right,” says Johnston. “I was in an insane asylum, now I’m traveling. I’m spending cash, girls are around, I have a lot of good friends and I have good old time. I’m really happy these days, more so than ever. I’m looking forward to a brighter future, and I hope that everything will be all right for all of the listeners out there.”

Download Daniel Johnston – Songs Of Pain original cassette

Buy Daniel Johnston Art

Official Daniel Johnston Fan Website

Daniel Johntson Discography