First off, I have to say that this is one of my five year old's favorites. He likes anything slightly creepy or macabre (I guess being born a week before Halloween can do that to you), and one day I was playing a mix CD in the car and this song came on. Quinn got really quiet, then said out of the blue: "Dad, why are his friends vampires?" (there's a line that goes "All my friends were vampires / didn't know they were vampires / turned out I was a vampire myself in a devil town"). So, anyway, I get a few requests for this song on trips.
I've come to Daniel Johnston late; a friend from work only recently burned me a CD of his, and it's...OK...but this song is great. You may notice that it's a cover, Bright Eyes did this version, and I bought this single because it was the only version of the song on itunes.**Edited to add - I just looked again on itunes, and the original's there now. The cover is still better, in my opinion**Not a big Bright Eyes fan myself, but they do a damn fine job here, capturing the spookiness and meloncholy of the song perfectly.
I bought this song because of my love for the TV show "Friday NIght Lights". Believe me when I say I don't watch much TV, and there are maybe three or four that I watch religiously, and FNL is the king of all shows. I"m serious. If you didn't see last season, check it out on DVD before season two starts. You don't even have to like football, either, it's just an incredibly well done show. I haven't been in love with a show this much since "Freeks and Geeks", or maybe "Reba".
Anyway, I believe in the pilot they played this song over the opening credits, which made me immediately think - damn, they may have something here (incidently, the show's inde cred is airtight - Explosions in the Sky does much of the score, and I've heard tracks from The Go! Team, Spoon and Le Tigre too). At the end of the season, they bookended the final scene of the state championship parade through town (not a cheesy at it sounds, trust me) with this song again, and I swear, my allergies started acting up just a little. Do yourself a favor and check it out.
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I first heard of Daniel Johnston sometime around 1991 in Athens when I saw a sign downtown advertising a show at the 40 Watt that night: "Vic Chesnutt and the Skinny Intellectuals Play Songs of Pain." I figured that Songs of Pain was just a generic name for all of his music, just like skinny intellectuals was a generic name for all of his bandmates.
But, in fact, Songs of Pain was a Daniel Johnston album which they were covering in its entirety. In between songs Vic raved about the original, which I still have never heard.
I eventually purchased a Daniel Johnston tape, and listened to it hard, trying to convince myself that I liked it, but it just didn't take. I had the same experience with Ornette Coleman. I remember buying the Free Jazz LP at Downtown Records when it was on College Square and taking it home and listening to it straight through while reading the extensive liner notes and trying to make some sense of what I was hearing. If you would have asked me at the time, I would have told you how great I thought it was. If I had been honest, I would have said that it didn't even sound like music at all and that I still preferred Bryan Adams.
Songs of pain like the pain of every Falcons fan right about now? Thats some awefully sharp stinging pain I bet. So the Vick experiment is over, not the way I thought it would end, but over. You should actually be happy to move on. It wasn't ever going to end well. The sooner the better. He was never going to be able to throw worth a damn anyway. Maybe you can draft Morrelli.
When I was a kid I remember trying to figure out what stories were being told in songs. I always wondered what happened to Piano Man. Did he ever get out of that bar? I thought it was sad that everyone seemed to be trapped there.
Daniel Johnston, as is the case with many "outsider artists", is one of those listen-to-it-and-eventually-you'll-get-it artists. I was introduced to Johnston when my boss at an Athens restaurant would frequently play his music. I didn't get it, and the fact that I hated my boss probably didn't help. After I distanced myself from his music for awhile and began to associate Johnston with other friends and musicians, I eventually experienced an epiphany.
In a similiar way, it takes folks awhile to get into Beefheart and Coltrane's later Impulse recordings. I still don't get Trane's heroin-induced pops and squeaks, though.
With Johnston, however, I believe you have to understand the artist in order to understand his music; the two are indivisibly linked. This isn't Britney Spears singing a song written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. This is a soldier screaming after his leg has been taken from him. It is Elie Wiesel crying over his dead father. It is the essence of pure emotion. A fucked up, obsessive child uncontrollably baring his pain, thoughts, and insanity to the masses.
Also, I admire simplicity---when an artist can say things so perfectly, and it just makes you want to say, "I could've written that", but you didn't.
If I had my own way
You'd be here with me today
But I rarely have my own way
I guess that's why you're not here with me today
And the librarian said
'You can't buy no respect'
I said, ‘Hey, lady, what can you expect
When I'm lying on the floor?’
Well I love the lady but you don't wanna be
No girl of mine
Well the only thing you ever done for me
Was help me waste my time
And I saw you at the funeral
You were standing there like a temple
I said ‘Hi! How are you? Hello!’
And I pulled up a casket and crawled in
Yes, I did
Climbed up a Mountain and I looked around
Some kind of circus with all them clowns
I said hey wait a minute can't we slow down a bit
And I almost got hit by a truck
Well it just goes to show you that we're all on our own
Scrounging for our own share of good luck
Stab your brother in the back
And pick up your pay check
Good-bye lonely heart drawings
You never did work anyhow
I'm looking for a nice girl
And I don't want no cow
I'm heading out West
Gonna find me the best
Well, I played the game but I failed the test
If I can't be a lover then I'll be a pest
Yes, I will
"I would have told you how great I thought it was. If I had been honest, I would have said that it didn't even sound like music at all and that I still preferred Bryan Adams."
Well done, Nick +10
Isn't it just like a Philly fan to inject sports into EVERYTHING? Please leave us falcons fans alone, MIke, to wallow in misery yet again. It's what we do best.
heyseuss, +10 for you as well, although if you're slagging Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, you may just have a scrap on your hands.
Hey man. When are you going to step this up a notch and upload the actual songs?
sheesh.
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