Daniel Johnston at Optimus Primavera Sound 2013. Photo by Nari Mann.
Daniel Johnston was an artist. In a world with tightly circumscribed roles, Daniel was a true original. In a time where there are only so many ways to fit in, he was boldly and unapologetically himself, defying categorization.
“Hi, How Are You?” is the phrase Daniel Johnston will be associated with for as long as Austin still has its weird bleeding heart. It is the name of an early album of his, as well as the phrase scrawled above the famous frog mural on the drag where Sound Exchange used to be—a work of Daniel’s visual art.
“The first time I moved to Austin, my boyfriend and I decided to complete a rite of passage and go record shopping at Sound Exchange. Our friend James Minor was working there, and he’s now the head of SXSW Music. The first thing we bought was a Daniel Johnston cassette. The cassette that he bought me had Worried Shoes on it. When I heard that song, I thought, “Wow,” I don’t feel so alone, because I feel like I wear worried shoes every day. I didn’t know that he was mentally ill until my boyfriend told me the story about him. He was like a legend, an underground guy in town. There was an air organ on that song, and the first thing I did was get an air organ shipped to me and try to write songs with it.” —Leslie Sisson of the band Moving Panoramas
“Hi, How Are You?” could not be more fitting for his legend. It is a friendly pleasantry that opens up a connection between two willing people. But for people who are different—socially awkward, on the autistic spectrum, or just vibrating on a different wavelength—Hi, How Are You can be a barrier to entrance into social life, and as such, a barrier for functioning in the normie world.
“His creations were honest and although troubled they’re pure. His art and music create a home for misfits to realize that they do fit—we all fit together.” —Kendra Sells of the band BluMoon
Daniel Johnston was not a normie. He is a cultural phenom who has become the patron saint of misfit romantics. His songs are largely autobiographical, even when they seem at first not to be, and have a certain genuine sentimentality about them that fans find endearing. He swings from ditties about an anxious boy, to many songs about love, the nature of love, the elusiveness of love, and the inevitability of love. From a man with physical and mental health disabilities came revelatory music and art.
“Daniel Johnston lived in a world that I’m sure was difficult to live in because I think it required a lot of pain, but at the same time there’s a lot of beauty there too. He was an artist, and conceptually front to back he was doing his own thing.” —Zane Zor of the band Thanks Light
His lyrics are plain but they are not simple. He did not need flowery language or overwrought constructs to sing about the deep issues of life, and to do so with poetry and emotion. His childlike voice reveals the truth of his nature and music—earnest, authentic, and direct, with a thematic maturity forged in the cauldron of a difficult life.
Listening to his early work reveals a process that sounds like shattered pieces of the psyche being reassembled into raw yet coherent musical and artistic statements. It affirms bricolage—the process of assembling a document or piece from disparate ideas and inclinations, distilling it into form through iterative reassembly, like you would with a pile of lego blocks—as a legitimate approach to making art.
“The thing about it is, the music and the lyrics are not complicated at all. He’s writing pop songs, and not in a sophisticated or pretentious way. But in the performance and in the recordings and in the artwork, you just get a strong sense of his personality, this person behind the music. It still is to me so unique to get so much of that across and have it be such a singular thing. There are very few artists that can do that with a tape recorder, a guitar, a piano, and a voice.” —Walker Lukens
Daniel’s burden to carry was his lifelong struggle with mental illness. While his diagnosis remains murky, the 2006 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston recounted episodes of psychotic breaks from reality, as well as social peculiarities. During one long hospital stay, his manager arranged for him to negotiate his music contract from the ward. Over the years, his psychological deterioration weighed on him, causing him to eventually move home in the care of family. As he sang on the 1982 album Don’t Be Scared, “And I feel just like an empty eggshell, and / My yoke is heavy.”
“There’s this myth of the mentally ill artist. Daniel Johnston was a living example of what that is. But I don’t think he ever had any awareness of that or cared about that. I think in a lot of ways he was also a victim of this myth. Nobody told him that he needed to take care of himself as a person, and that he needed to live his life, and have full relationships. I think he started a conversation that caused people to look at that and to realize that artists are people who have problems just like anybody else. In a way artistic aspirations toxify your mental health, because you sort of live to serve your art rather than live to be well and have a full life and relationships. I think Daniel Johnston lived an example of how that balance could be difficult for people.” —Marcos & Chris of the band Luvweb
Daniel’s art included a preoccupation with the divine and the profane, a theme that ran throughout several albums and artwork and revealed what likely was a battle for his grasp on reality, a battle waged in his mind. From what can be gleaned from the documentary, he did not invoke spiritual references abstractly. Daniel became obsessed with, if not terrified of Satan and supernatural consequences. I have no way of knowing what this symbol meant to him, or how much he bought into the representations of evil from the Christian tradition. I only know that when you name your demons, it gives you something to struggle against. And make no mistake, Daniel was consumed with the struggle.
Johnston’s music poured over many other intimate themes that recurred throughout his body of work: cultural criticism, music and art, love and loss, angels and devils, the blues, awkwardness, and relationships with the self and others. Namely, all the important stuff. While his sentiments resonate with a broad audience, they carry a special poignancy for those in the throes of mental illness. The example of Daniel’s life holds within it the hope that you can not only survive, you can have a voice in this world, a way of expressing yourself through art or otherwise that even those more privileged could understand, respect, or in Daniel’s case even revere.
“His songs are about everything. Sometimes I don’t even know what they’re about. But what he’s about is just his art. He’s always very excited and proud of his art, and I don’t think he cared what happened with it; he was just excited when people liked it. He wasn’t trying to be this rock star. He was 100% pure and sincere. There’s a lot of music out there that is a commodity, and people are writing songs to make money. I think that Daniel was writing songs to share his heart.” —Leslie Sisson of the band Moving Panoramas
“Hi, How Are You?” will continue to signify Daniel’s legend in more ways than one. It is a rallying cry for the social misfits. It is the name of a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring conversations around mental health. But the phrase and the associated iconic mural in central Austin is also fitting of a hometown hero like Daniel in another way—it is emblematic of the genuine friendliness of this town, and, by extension, how we collectively choose to treat those in our community who are on the margins.
Austin is a sanctuary city, a haven for the housing dispossessed, a great place to be a musician if you’re looking for healthcare or mental health care thanks to the HAAM and SIMS organizations, and a place where people truly do put “love thy neighbor” into practice. Whenever a member of this community falters, or an injustice goes unrighted, ordinary Austinites organize to address the need—I’ve seen it time and time again.
The Daniel Johnston celebration at the Mohawk on October 10, 2019 titled “A Celebration of the Late Great Daniel Johnston,” where I met the artists interviewed in this piece, is just one of countless examples of musicians and event coordinators organizing quickly to put on a happening that fills a need in the community. Living in a city like Austin, one is inspired every day just to connect, to contribute, and to be their unique selves in a way that makes the city all the more special.
“One time I saw a picture of Gibby Haynes, Roky Erickson, and Willie Nelson all in front of a texas flag. I jokingly said to my girlfriend at the time, you know who’s missing in this picture? Daniel Johnston.” —Zane Zor of the band Thanks Light
Daniel Johnston passed away on September 11, 2019 at the age of 58. His legacy, already quite impressive, remains to be seen. It is a legacy that’s larger than art, larger than music, and larger than mental health. He is a public figure to an audience that grows all the time, and he will live on in the people, organizations, and artworks that he inspires.
“Love is for everyone.” —Daniel Johnston
– Nari Mann
