The Musical Concern
Daniel Johnston
Is And Always Was
(October 6, 2009 – Eternal Yip Eye Music)

Every mind is an island - a landlocked island surrounded by walls: knee walls, great walls, or middling, porous walls that filter the stuff of daily life. It’s the last one that most people are born with (or build up). This one renders “balance,” “normalcy,” “functionality.” In short: sanity.

An abundance of trouble awaits either side the wall too thick, too low, or too high. The island will dry out, flood, or whither in darkness, and might, over time, become boring, manic, or menacing. Eventually, the tolerance of neighboring islands is exhausted and upheaval ensues. At length, this is insanity.

In the hour or two before sitting down to write, I listened to an interview with a “teacher” who espoused all sorts of nonsense regarding the “human condition.” The talk was broadcast on a reputable national radio network, yet I hazard a guess that not a handful of fellow listeners recoiled from the following packaged insanity:

“(Y)ou are…pre-biological. To find yourself you remove yourself from the identity as a body by stopping thinking. In the sweetness of silence, silence is realized to be always here, always available. Silence is here in noise, it is here in thoughts, it is here in confusion, it is here in anger, in sorrow, in life and in death. Always present. Then realize that silence is your own self… You are always present as silence.” --Eli Jaxon-Bear

There’s much to be gained from a smooth speaking voice and a calm demeanor, not to mention the careful indexing of mad thoughts and faux logic. But imagine, if you will, the preceding passage spoken in fits and starts by an agitated or angry speaker who pauses too often and too long to gather his sentences.

The former we call “teacher,” but the latter, “lunatic?” It’s crazy what we call crazy.

Too soon, Rimbaud and Van Gough crumbled under the weight of their own lunacy. Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson carried their load to the bitter end. The great masses of manic-depressive genius, however, are trampled under the foot of Time. The odds are against them, Time being what it is. (Given enough Time, any monkey…)

So, it is with something akin to reverence that I come to Daniel Johnston’s latest LP, Is And Always Was.

Time and the odds were not on his side. Not when, in the 1980s, he ran around Austin, Texas passing out homemade cassettes of his homemade recordings. Not during his numerous hospitalizations for “nervous breakdowns.” Not when the crowd grew quiet as he melted down and quit on stage. And not as computer algorithms identified Daniel Johnston as a mere musical novelty, lumping him in with The Shaggs and Wesley Willis.

Johnston, now 48, has lived a mental Hell and suffered the accompanying indignities and hazards, yet here he is with something wonderful, something vital, and for him (and his fans) something new.

Producer/musician Jason Falkner (Jellyfish, Beck, Paul McCartney) has managed to craft an even-keeled, eleven-song album fit for an audience who would have dismissed, if not panned, Johnston’s previous releases. All tracks get the full studio treatment, and there’s scarcely a harrowing moment during their combined 35 minutes. Yet Johnston, in his unguarded glory and casual, raw emotion, is completely present and commanding throughout -- it’s still his show.

Some fans may find themselves wishing for more lo-fi, or less zap ‘n’ blip from the special effects machines. Others may have to relearn how to tap their toes to a consistent beat. But that’s a small price to pay if it buys a broader audience and a bigger stage, if it allows Johnston to stretch Time and beat the odds.

Whether you’re a hardcore fan or a newcomer, I simply wouldn’t trust anyone who didn’t love “Queenie the Doggie.”

Queenie the Doggie, who “always had the most fun, most all of the time,” is an instant Johnston classic. More celebration than lament, Queenie scampers through Johnston’s sun soaked memory backed by a half-country, half-calypso soundtrack. A children’s song, if not for the breezy delivery of the lyric that opens and closes the song: “Queenie the Doggie was a friend of mine/If only the money could save her now.” And also this: “Love is an illusion and it plays with your brain/It’s plain and it’s simple, it’s hard to explain.”

In “I Had Lost My Mind” Johnston flips the figurative upside down, and goes in search of his mind, not unlike one would search for a pet. His encounter with the lady at the Lost and Found is straight, sand-up comedy, as his “cute little bugger” is returned. “I said ‘Thank you, ma’am, I’m always losing that dang thing.’”

The quasi-anthemic rocker, “Fake Records of Records of Rock and Roll” disses the music world and lays down the mid-tempo boogie! Johnston isn’t happy with the bands or the fans these days. “Well, it sounds just like shit to me -- Fake records of rock and roll/The ruin of history -- Fake records of rock and roll/Can’t even get down and boogie --Fake records of rock and roll -- Look out!”

And finally, from the spacey, acoustic-driven opener, “Mind Movies,” a few lines for comparison with the above quoted passage from Eli Jaxon-Bear:

“You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. I am nowhere to be seen. I’m out to lunch. And I don’t want things to turn out wrong. I’m just a psycho trying to write a song. And talk is cheap. I’m just a creep for your love. You never were a zero ‘til you died. You make a lot of movies in your mind and you sure are impossibly unkind. And I love you so. And I can’t let go.”

Which passage says more about the “human condition?” Which teaches or informs? Which one smells of dishonesty? Honestly, side by side, which passage appears the product of madness?

JH

Daniel Johnston