Inside Daniel Johnston’s love for The Beatles: ‘Smoking and listening all day long’
Listening to outsider folk artist Daniel Johnston’s homemade cassettes of lo-fi pop or immersing oneself in his accompanying artwork and comic book illustrations, it’s impossible not to be struck by the playful manner in which he explores his innermost pain. Johnston’s work is often described as “childlike”, which isn’t unfounded, but amid his curious world of welcoming creatures and cheerful superheroes lie flagrant expressions of anguish and spiritual howl.
Johnston’s remarkable musical tale is inseparable from his mental health issues. Along with the cult following he garnered across the 1980s and early ’90s, his bipolar disorder lapsed into bouts of manic psychosis, accelerated by frequent LSD use and resulting in several periods committed to psychiatric units.
This came to a head in 1990 when, under the impression he was Casper the Friendly Ghost, Johnston flung the ignition key from the private two-seater plane his former US Air Force veteran father was piloting, forcing a crash-land which they both survived.
While his dramatic life has no doubt helped generate interest in his music, helped further by 2005’s acclaimed The Devil and Daniel Johnston documentary, it’s hard not to find his soul-bearing innocence fascinating.
The intimacy of his bedroom lo-fi is forever ensconced in an inviting warmth. His eccentric lyricism on life, love, favourite cartoon characters, or the trials and tribulations of Jesus Christ sung without a shred of irony or contrived labour, each recording session a pure and naked window into the psychedelic Richard Scary townscape of his creative being, a realm where his demons are kept at bay by friendly monsters.
His two biggest muses in life were Laurie Allen, his old art-school friend who influenced a wealth of songs, and The Beatles. Inspired by a comment drummer Ringo Starr had reportedly made about taking other artists’ songs and rearranging their chord structures to create new ones, Johnston set to task learning his Compete Beatles songbook to heart and crafting his own affectionate and idiosyncratic pop pieces. Their impact proved so consequential Johnston would credit them as the ultimate guide toward songwriting.
“The Beatles were definitely what got me going with music, and as soon as I discovered them, I was buying their albums left and right,” he told journalist Paul Du Noyer in 2006. “When I came to Texas, I probably had about $2000 worth of Beatles bootlegs. I had to take some back to get cash when I ran out of money but then I’d probably buy them back from the same store I sold them to. Just a few years ago, I was listening to nothing but The Beatles, smoking and listening to The Beatles all day long. I’m Beatle crazy”.
His love of The Beatles would inspire their own tribute song in 1983’s Yip/Jump Music, Johnston would tackle the surreal ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ with Half-Japanese’s Jad Fair, and ‘Got to Get You into My Life’ is given a haunting rendition on 1990. Sadly, after dying from a heart attack in 2019, it’s unlikely the world of popular music or the alternative underground will encounter an artist who could celebrate and express their love in life with such unfiltered joy.
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