Some Words on Daniel Johnston

 

In replacement of the usual monthly media digest, I've taken it upon myself to dedicate the only likely write-up for this month to the work and character of an artist that's made a quick and sweeping impact on me in recent weeks. That is of course none other than that of the late, great Daniel Johnston.

Those who convene with me often might know that consistently chasing new highs for music is a nature I'm somewhat evasive to. Unlike the cinema and literature, music is the art form I move the slowest with despite the obvious paradox in its level of accessibility and commitment compared to the former. It isn't that I lack fondness for the form but rather it's the art I obsess over most as to incite repetition of the beloved. I just don't have it in me to exhaust a movie I really love repeatedly within a short span of time as with a very valuable book. I'd probably end up turning on them in due time. But with music, I am prone to do the exact opposite of that. If I exchange with something I resonate more than well with, consider me married to the musician/album/songs for the unforeseeable near future. This is how I come to consider personal favorites. The duration of that repetition and obsession and the endurance without feeling rationally worn. I remain a captive to the work (or in this case person). The effect of Johnston's entire oeuvre as of late, has more than successfully passed this esoteric trial of my ears and brain. I'm intoxicated.

Whether it be his unabashed attempts at capturing the pop sensation of The Beatles or striving for the anatomic psychedelia of Marvel comics illustrator Jack Kirby, even have knowingly chased for as much of a career in professional illustration in counterpart to his more famed role of singer/songwriter, the transformation of influence over mere translation Johnston mesmerically expels glimpses at a mind fabled by misfortune but pure in artistic transmogrification of the most endearing respect. Though Johnston's battles with mental illness have come to define his legacy, and in tragic ways essential to his success, my appreciation of him more concerns the purity of his being through it all.

I do not romanticize Johnston's handicap and troubled past like I feel many of his followers do likely, but reveling in a parasocial manner the restless mind of a natural born creative (and in minor ways some striking similarities of character with that of my own father.) Traversing mediums all for the sake of artistic conquest and mediation. No matter the barriers, both circumstantial and self-inflicted, Johnston prevailed in the end. It's beautiful to me. His art shoots a speeding bullet through arguments of objectivity in artistic practice, revealing the affluence of articulation to be less of convention and more chaotic, in a celebratory, liberated sense of the word. Johnston's music, drawings, and even short films communicate the gift of these mediums more directly than most. Even if a profitable brand did arise for Johnston, commerce as motivation was seemingly not the provenance for creation. Something I think not only I but all of those who aspire to create should be repeated to.

Daniel Johnston created because Daniel Johnston wanted to.

In a moment where I've just gotten over some intense existential plight about wasting time creating if it does not lead to financial success, precisely encountering the man and his work feels like some form of destiny, even if I do not at all believe in such necessarily. But it's a nice thing to be sentimental about and hold close. Keep creating and let true love find you in the end.

Favorite Songs:

1. True Love Will Find You In The End

2. Grievances (prefer Johnston's later rendition of this song over the original on Songs of Pain)

3. Walking the Cow

4. Deviltown

5. Story of an Artist