This piece is dedicated to the memory of recently-deceased Texas outsider musician Daniel Johnston, who passed from a heart attack at the age of 58, on 10 September 2019.

Daniel was an artist who, for many, was very much an acquired taste, as he never had a great deal of skill or ability, when it came to singing or playing instruments. In addition to this, he struggled with severe mental illness for his entire adult life, and even worse, was that the medication regimen that he was placed on to control his illness played havoc on his physical health, wearing out his body, and ageing him far before its time. In his final years, he looked like a man well into his eighties, rather than one in his fifties…

Nevertheless, despite his difficulties, Daniel was an incredibly gifted songwriter and visual artist, who eventually became incredibly influential, his unvarnished, and almost childlike emotions and innocence often ranging from the uncomfortably painful to the incredibly profound.

What was also undeniable is the sheer amount of world-class artists, who have cited him as a major influence over the years, and who have covered his songs, including Kurt Cobain, Wilco, Tom Waits, The Flaming Lips, Jad Fair, The Butthole Surfers, The Dead Milkmen, Glen Hansard, and others too numerous to mention. Indeed, my own first exposure to Daniel Johnston’s work dates back to 1987 when I was still in High School, and I purchased a copy of The Dead Milkmen’s album “Bucky Fellini” (mainly because of the irresistible snark and sarcasm of their song “Instant Club Hit/You’ll Dance to Anything”). On that same album, they covered Daniel Johnston’s song “Rocketship”, from which I have partially quoted a line in this piece. Other well-known songs that Daniel did, which I have also referred to include: “Story of an Artist” and “True Love Will Find You in the End.”

As a visual artist, Daniel Johnston was most well known for a stalk-eyed alien frog that was originally on the cover of his 1983 self-released sixth album: “Hi, How Are You”. Johnston was later commissioned in 1993, to render the alien frog image and the album title as a mural at the corner of West 21st St. and Guadelupe St. in Austin, TX., and the mural still remains to this day, having become a cultural landmark in Austin, and which the locals eventually began to refer to as: “Jeremiah the Innocent”.

One other song I have referred to is “Gottingen Street”, which was on the 1988 album: Labour Day by Vancouver indy-rock group Spirit of the West, specifically referring to the way many of us often view marginalised people as: “just another extra on the set”.

In closing, I think the best recommendation I can give anyone, who wants to discover the unique but fragile gift of Daniel Johnston for themselves is to check out the performance he did on Austin City Limits, where he collaborated with Glen Hansard and The Swell Season (which is easy to find on YouTube). I would also recommend the 2005 documentary about his life, that was titled: “The Devil and Daniel Johnston”.


EDIT and ADDENDUM (November 2019): Since writing and posting this piece, John Mann, who was the lead singer of the Canadian folk-rock band: "Spirit of the West", which I have also referred to within the piece, has likewise joined Daniel Johnston on the other side, passing of early-onset Alzheimer's on 20 November 2019