Daniel Johnston's Essential Songs: Listen to 12 Songs

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At his home in rural Texas, on the eve of his last tour in 2017, singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston told me that he wished to have a great song someday, what he called "a real success". This success escapes him, but the cascade of poignant and often funny funny songs he had been singing compulsively over the last four decades had cult fan base that included Kurt Cobain, Beck, Jeff Tweedy and Lana Del Rey. His lyrics described universal themes such as loneliness, despair, and unrequited love, but did so on almost uncomfortable personal terms. His struggles against mental illness were rarely far from the surface, and although he wrote about his world with a childish wonder, the emotions that ran through his music were often complex and heartbreaking. Here are 12 of his essential songs.

This ephemeral and lo-fi recording appeared in "Songs of Pain" on a $ 59 boombox. Beneath the piano, his handsome piano and brilliant voice conceal a dark, sour and presumably autobiographical narrative that he would have lived as an eccentric artistically gifted, but psychologically confused: "The days go by so slowly / I do not have of friends, "sings Johnston. "Except all those people who want me to do them tricks / Like a monkey in a zoo."

A dark and comical air sung with the angry young man of the young Elvis Costello. The titular man seems to be Johnston himself and his obsession, Laurie Allen, a true lover of high school. She remained a muse for Johnston all his life despite the fact that their relationship remained platonic and Allen married a funeral director. "The only way to make her look at you," Johnston jokes on the trail of "The What of Whom," is "to die".

This nude piano ballad is perhaps Johnston's most lucid attempt to express the despair he often felt in living with a mental illness. He compares this to "trying to understand scrambled eggs" and "being kidnapped by a black wolf," but does not want listeners to get lost in metaphors. "You can listen to these songs / have a good time and go away," he sings in the last devastating verse. "But for me, it's not that easy / I have to live these songs forever."

Played with a zany abandon on a cheap organ, this song from "Yip / Jump Music" is full of whimsical couplets, but Johnston's anguish is never far from the surface: "Pretty girls have you took a ride / hurt you deep inside / never slowed down. The track became a Johnston signature and was covered by indie rock artists such as Yo La Tengo, The Pastels and Mary Lou Lord.

Johnston grew up in an evangelical family and religion exerted a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, influence on his writing. On this "1990" song, he sings in a remarkably clear and powerful voice, without the instrumental accompaniment of "living in a devil town" where "all my friends are vampires," he seems haunted.

Working with the New York producer known simply as Kramer, Johnston's spare meditation on burning desire and unrequited love is enhanced by discreet ornaments – a lone guitar sound, a glittering background sound, ghostly voices.

Perhaps Johnston's best-known song is just him, two chords played on an acoustic guitar and it's over in less than two minutes. But the message full of hope resonates deeply: this is not a statement of blind faith in the idea expressed in the title, but rather, as he sings, it is "a promise with a catch, "a mantra-like belief that stubborn pursuit of true love may be the reward, in itself.

Despite his cult status, Johnston had real commercial ambitions, and at this stage of his career he began to attract the attention and praise of iconic underground rock bands such as Sonic Youth and Half Japanese. The energetic opening song from his 1991 album "Artistic Vice" – which was produced again by Kramer but now has a full band – reveals that Johnston is marveling at this new attention, even with a blink of an eye. sly eye and a wink: "My fame spreads across the earth / Now I have a group. "

"Fun," one of Johnston's major albums, failed to generate the commercial breakthrough he wanted, but in times like this, he showed what he could have been. Produced by Butthole Surfers guitarist, Paul Leary, the song sums up Johnston's existential pain ("It's so hard to be alive when one has the impression of being undead") in the middle of A delicate acoustic guitar and warm strings. Johnston's emotional state (and voice) seems no less fragile than usual, but the support system around him keeps him going.

Johnston loved the Beatles above all else, and here he works with his fellow Fab Fav, Jason Falkner, on a title of "Is and Always Was," which he directs most of Beatlesque. Backed by catchy piano chords and a lick, Johnston is still looking for love beyond his reach, but this time with a bit of welcome resentment insinuating in his voice: "Looking from up your horse / As I did not do it. Of course. Johnston never really had a love interest or popular success, but in a strange, beautiful and alternative universe, this song would have created a net.

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