He Was Smiling Through His Own Personal Hell
The Daniel Johnston story is an underdog story. A tale of the misfit musician —a manic-depressive psychotic with no musical training— finding a kind of cult-level fame through sheer love and passion. But to frame Johnston's life as some 'inspirational' based-on-a-true-story tale is to condescend to his music; which is much better than being the cute, unintentionally-enjoyable product of some glorified charity chase.
There's no doubting that Johnston suits a peculiar taste: the original lo-fi troubadour, Johnston obsessively recording himself at home, on a piece of most rudimentary technology: a monaural boombox. With his helium-pitched voice, untrained chops, and aesthetic of pure amateurism, Johnston was always going to be fighting an uphill battle for recognition. Luckily, he had one small thing on his side: amazing songs.
Originally released on home-made cassette in 1983, Yip/Jump Music is Johnston's defining set of tunes. With but battered chord-organ chords —Johnston wacks the keys so hard that the slapping goes beyond audible to becoming a form of percussion— and his breaking, squawking voice, Johnston knocks out an unending (23 songs long!) set of delirious, delusional pop-songs.
With the impish imagination of a child at play, he riffs on The Beatles, God, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and King Kong, making magical, free-associative lyrical leaps at every turn. Sure, you can take it as a view inside a damaged mind, but Johnston's lyricism can easily be seen as an extension of gonzo beatnik surrealism: images redolent and emotions resonant.
Songs of Pain
Of course, Johnston's enduring appeal isn't because he's an oddball, but because he wrote great pop-songs. Yip/Jump Music has two that could stand up to anyone; even Johnston's heroes, The Beatles. "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances" is less overtly Christian than many of Johnston's hymnals, but over its three-chord motif, Johnston sings of repentance and forgiveness, honor and devotion. Its chorus is strange and simple, sung in Johnston's trademark'd croak: "Do yourself a favor/Become your own savior/And don't let the sun go down on your grievances.""Speeding Motorcycle" has become Johnston's most well-known song; covered, in subsequent years, by Yo La Tengo, The Pastels, and Mary Lou Lord. The song starts out stripped down, with single-finger melodies mirroring Johnston's vocal ("Speeding motorcycle, won't you change me?"), before things pick up; insistent, agitated chords out to represent the furious forward momentum of the speeding motorcycle of Johnston's heart. As Johnston sings of his heart at an abstract distance, it can easily be taken as a kind of dissociative ballad; the detachment he feels, here, matching the detachment he often feels from his manic-depressive actions.
As song, it perfectly symbolizes Johnston's appeal: seemingly silly and crappy, it turns out to be unexpectedly interesting and impossibly poignant. And when he sings "Cause we don't need reason and we don't need logic/We've got feeling and we're dang proud of it!" Johnston essentially states his raison d'etre: heart over head, even if it's to his own detriment.
Record Label: Homestead
Release Date: Self-Released Summer 1983, Reissued 1988
