Daniel Johnston - Modern Day Musical Genius

The first time you hear the music of Daniel Johnston you might think you are listening to a young child who has grabbed his parents’ tape recorder and just started belting songs out. His early recordings were low-fi even by low-fi standards. One cheap little cassette recorder with a cheap little microphone… that’s all he had to work with and yet, on the basis of what he recorded over the years he has been hailed as a musical genius… a pop prodigy whose talents at songwriting have been compared to the best of The Beatles or Bob Dylan.

Johnston grew up in Austin, Texas, living in his parents’ basement and working at menial low-paying jobs (his favorite job ever was when he worked at McDonalds). In his spare time he created music… mostly on the piano or chord organ. His skills as a musician were limited and his vocals were rudimentary at best… but there was no denying the power of his lyrics and song composition. 

He recorded his songs onto a small portable cassette recorder and created his own “albums”: Songs of Pain, More Songs of Pain, Hi, How Are You? and Yip/Jump Music among others. He drew his own odd little cartoons for the covers and distributed them wherever he could. Mostly he just handed them out free to friends, co-workers or random people he met on the street.

Johnston was a sensitive man whose life was filled with personal anguish and it is this anguish that found its way into so many of his songs: feelings of alienation and rejection, a weary contemplation of all the evil in the world and the bitter pangs of unrequited love. (Many of Johnston’s songs make mention of the love of his life, a girl named Laurie who spurned Daniel’s affections and eventually married a mortician.) However, in spite of some of the gloomy subject matter, Johnston’s songs usually maintained a cheery outlook. He always remained hopeful. There was always the prospect that things would get better and, until they did, there was always another song to sing.