Life In Vain, Not So Much

Daniel Johnston died yesterday.

It's likely that at least some of you have heard of this enigmatic figure.  He was fascinating. Like can't-look-away fascinating.

Visual artist, musician, poet.

Manic depressive, bipolar, schizophrenic.

NPR called him a "troubled soul." This bit of information about sums him up, from Wikipedia:

In spite of Johnston being resident in a mental hospital at the time, there was a bidding war to sign him. He refused to sign a multi-album deal with Elektra Records because Metallica was on the label's roster and he was convinced that they were of Satan and would hurt him. Ultimately he signed with Atlantic Records in February 1994.

And the music... just wow. When he sings, your initial takeaway is... yeah, there's something wrong with Daniel. Your inner five-year-old voice is Daniel Johnston's outer persona, particularly when he sings. So... it sounds like a little kid with a disability singing super-simple lyrics over two chords of guitar? That must sound terrible, right?

Wrong. It's great. Well, by traditional aesthetics it may be unlistenable, and it's not for everyone, for sure, but if you can dig in, you'll definitely hear it in there.  The real beauty.

This is someone who was working at McDonald's in the early 1980's and would hand out his homemade cassettes with homemade cover art.

Kurt was a fan

Someone who sings about life -- and make no mistake, life was very difficult for Daniel Johnston -- in an unadulterated, wide-eyed way.
Someone who lived with his parents or in institutions for much of his life.
Someone who gained a cult following, defying all logic.
Someone who made his own brand of music and toured all over, playing his songs.
Someone who had a documentary made about him.
This is Daniel Johnston.

I could write more about him, but others have done it plenty, and done it way better than I could. His backstory in an article from the Austin paper, where he lived for a long time. Here's a recent NPR Tiny Desk recording. And you can just Google his name to find more than a few posthumous tributes. Here's the Austin rendition.

I mean, it's easy to shake your head when you read this.

In 1990, Johnston played at a music festival in Austin, Texas. On the way back to West Virginia on a private two-seater plane piloted by his father Bill, Johnston had a manic psychotic episode; believing he was Casper the Friendly Ghost, Johnston removed the key from the plane's ignition and threw it outside. His father, a former U.S. Air Force pilot, managed to successfully crash-land the plane, even though "there was nothing down there but trees". Although the plane was destroyed, Johnston and his father emerged with only minor injuries. As a result of this episode, Johnston was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital.

But then, watch this Austin City Limits rendition of one of my favorites of his, "Life in Vain." Judd Apatow says it "makes me cry every time."

His pièce de résistance is a song called "True Love Will Find You in the End."

The song is so simple. It's 1:48 long. It has a guitar quietly emanating a pair of chords in the far-off background. And the lyrics are just so simple. But they're really quite nice.

True Love Will Find You in the End

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don't be sad, I know you will
But don't give up until
True love will find you in the end

This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking can it find you
'Cause true love is searching too
But how can it recognize you
If you don't step out into the light, the light

Don't be sad I know you will
Don't give up until
True love will find you in the end


And that voice.

Wilco, Beck, and many, many others have covered it. Decently. My favorite cover is by a band called Hey Marseilles.

But what any cover lacks is what makes Johnston's songs remarkable -- his plain, plaintive singing, the childlike quality that makes you not just hear it, not just listen to it, not just feel it, but it makes you think.

About what the fuck must be going on with that cat's head.
And his life.
And what it must have taken to throw himself out there like that.
And what odds he overcame in his life.
And how if he can do this, why can't I?
And lots of other things more specific and personal to you. That's the cool part of it.

People took to calling him "genius." Which bothered him, and which you don't need to do to someone suffering from those conditions. It's just a word in the end, and whether it bears truth or not when applied to Daniel Johnston, it doesn't matter. He created something that wasn't there, and his legacy is permanent. And it was, in its own way, really beautiful. Beauty does take some interesting shapes. 

Rest in peace, Daniel Johnston. In the end, it seemed that many people found their true love in your music and your art and your message. Here's hoping it found you.

"Don't be sad, I know you will."