This is a combination official blog post and movie review about the documentary “The Devil and Daniel Johnston.”
Born in Sacramento, CA in 1961 to loving but indifferent parents, Daniel Johnston suffers from severe manic depression and at times, seems to border on schizophrenia, but it doesn’t curtail his creativity in drawing Robert Crumb-like doodlings and recording Dylan-esque music. It’s said that the price of genius is insanity and while the insanity part is very clearly shown in the film, I’m not so sure about the genius part. To be sure, his drawings have a unique imagery and while his music has a similarly unique point of view, it ultimately falls short of the kind of genius that, say, Mozart or Beethoven had.
A music theory that I’ve always cherished and endorsed is that of the Musical Manifest Destiny: he who is first has the best shot at making an impact. Bands like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, the Who, and the Kinks made great rock music partly because they were pioneers. They were in the enviable position of being the first to define what modern rock music could sound like and the proof of this can be found in all the copycat acts and tribute bands that followed.
I’m not trying to say that Daniel Johnston’s music is the first of it’s kind: home-grown, cheaply-crafted, raw-sounding folk recordings made with a piano or acoustic guitar. But this theory is one of the reasons that gives his music the best chance to be heard: by the time the digital download era began with Napster in 1999, Daniel Johnston had amassed several hundred songs. Prolific? Yes.
But these are less like songs and more like ramblings of a deranged mind set to music, which is the other reason why he’s being listened to. Probably the best thing about his music is his lyrics. If we overlook the fact that he has trouble playing guitar and the fact that he’s off-kilter, you start to notice things you’d never normally forgive. His music is constructed without concern for things like melody or key signature, which gives him the benefit of sounding unique, but in the final analysis it must be said that these are not great songs.
Even more than musical manifest destiny, I submit that Daniel Johnston’s perceived genius is the product of a delusion. It’s fairly easy to imagine how this might have happened:
“Hey, you’ve got to hear this guy’s music. This dude took over the controls of an airplane that his father was piloting and crashed it (true story)! He’s fucking nuts! Listen to this song here.”
Who wouldn’t want to hear a song by a kid who attacked his music manager with a lead pipe, sending him to the hospital (another true story). I’d want to hear that song! Hey, I understand his mental condition may prohibit him from living a normal life. Fine, but that doesn’t qualify him to be the next Bob Dylan. Writing good songs does that. I’m quite sure there are dozens if not hundreds of kids out there who make songs that sound just like Daniel’s.
So I’m not what you’d call a Daniel Johnston fan. To each his own.
