Customer Reviews

Songs of Pain: Early Recordings Volume 1

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Daniel Johnston is one of the world's undiscovered treasures. If things were perfect, his songs would be as widely covered, his life would be as intensely studied, and his work would be as revered and celebrated as the songs and albums of Bob Dylan.
Seriously.
Bob Dylan's voice isn't exactly conventionally good, but people have slobbered over him for decades. And Daniel Johnston's voice...well..you could say it's not conventionally "good" either, in the same way that Dylan's isn't, but like Dylan's, it gets better with every listen, and like Dylan's, it contains more real emotion, more real humanity, and earns more feelings of sympathy and love than any of the lame, slick, polished Michael Bolton-type voices that can hit every note exactly as their voice instructors taught them to.
At times, I've sworn off all music but Daniel Johnston. Nothing has seemed good enough in comparison. His piano is inventive and rockin'. It's a heckuvalotta fun. His use of television as an instrument, his sampling of TV evangelists ("This is an ELECTRIFYING(!) time...for believers!") and of his mother yelling at him, his occasional spooky organ, his blithely unconventional rhyme schemes, his wide (yet obsessively focused) range of topics, his whining and cracked little voice, and above all his lyrics, his lyrics, his lyrics, make him, and these two CDs in particular, classics for all time and space, for all humanity everywhere.
Daniel Johnston is a diagnosed manic-depressive with delusions of grandeur, and his highs and his lows show in these songs. He's also spent much of his life obsessed with a girl who could have cared less about him and who later married a prosperous undertaker and (I've heard) filed a restraining order against Daniel Johnston despite all the great songs he had written about her.
In one song he tells the girl that he'd die without her love, and she says "Too bad about that."
In another, the terrifying "My Baby Cares for the Dead," he sings about the girl marrying the undertaker and about the only way she'll ever care for him (Daniel Johnston) again.
"I know someday my baby
Will care for me.
She'll bleed and dress me, Momma,
Real fancy....
And she'll lay me
In a coffin,
Put marbles in my eyes...
Eyes!
I know someday my baby
Will care for me.
I know someday my baby
Will care for me.
I know someday my baby
Will care for me.
My baby...cares...for...the...dead."
These songs are absolutely genius. They're funny, dark, sad, twisted, happy, joyous, and wonderfully human. You will feel that Daniel Johnston is your friend, as if he's opened himself completely to you, and he has. The recordings are lo-fi, but at times that lo-fi quality even accents and helps the songs: high piano notes are transformed into a different instrument entirely just by the recorder being placed right next to the keys. The barely noticeable background hiss (and the genuiness of the songs themselves) gives the music an old-time folk feel. And Daniel's mother occasionally bursting in while he's playing...well, that's just hilarious.
If you like music, you will probably like this album. This is music for people who love music, who love the way that music sometimes skips the brain completely and goes right to the heart, right to the soul. This is what music was supposed to be: unique, heartfelt, real, and exciting.
Daniel's influence on modern music--on Nirvana, The Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Tom Waits, The Butthole Surfers, Beck, and others--is immeasurable, and he could have an immeasurable influence on you as well.
If you let him.
You should let him.

Be careful! This is the real stuff. It will break your heart and make you smile. More! There's at least 10 more CDs worth of 80s Daniel Johnston out there. Buy this so they will release more. There is no way you will regret it. Low-tech in recording quality. Pure in emotional expression.

I've been a huge fan of low fi and indie music for years so I've known of Daniel for a long time, and I do have his album Fun in my collection. But I'm ashamed to say I never delved into his early stuff. Always meant to, but didn't, and now availability is (stupidly, unbelievably) a bit of an issue. But I jumped at the chance to see Daniel perform in Denton, Texas a couple of weeks ago and I bought this collection at the show.

What can I possibly say about this music? It's inspired and inspiring. It has emotion, insight, and humor. It couldn't be more raw, but at the same time it's wierdly refined. Maybe most of all it's surprising: there's hardly a note or lyric that comes out of Daniel quite the way you expect. But none of what I've just written really means anything, because I'm using words to do a job that they're not all that well suited for. Something else, something that has nothing to do with language, gets a hold of music for us. If I believed in it, I'd say it was the soul. Then again, after hearing Daniel, maybe I do believe in it....

Do I sound inspired? I'm inspired. Buy this music and listen to it.

The artist that I would most liken Daniel Johnston to is Brian Wilson. Daniel has never had the acclaim of commercial success othat Brian has but they have a lot in common. They both have a childlike purity, honesty and innocence in their music combined with an instinctive musical gift. Brian may have a technical mastery that eludes Daniel but the passion in the voice and the playing here makes up for any rough edges or tape hiss.
These are beautiful songs of a type that you won't usually find on multimillion selling rock and pop stuff these days. Daniel has something in his songs you would find in old Irving Berlin's Cheek to Cheek OR in Brian Wilson's Wouldn't It Be Nice OR in The Beatles I Will, which Daniel covers here. I hope Paul McCartney hears Daniel sing I Will, I think it would move him, the performance captures the pure essence of a simple beautiful love song and makes it seem new again. Daniel sings songs of pain but he also sings songs of love and of truth.

Daniel Johnston was born on Jan. 22 1961 in Sacramento Cal. Not only an artist of creative cartoonish creatures, but by the late 1970s he was writing and recording Beatles inspired tunes. He was also diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and stayed in a mental hospital later on in 1990 after his private plane was successfully crashlanded by his father.
This, "Songs of Pain, & More Songs of Pain" (1980-1983);double album, is some of his best work. Extremely lo-fi, singing in a high pitched voice and sounding a lot like a little boy. Very simple yet heartful songwriting. You can really feel this connection of PAIN he felt and shared w/ all of us. He was quite a unselfish young man handing out home-made cassettes of his music, and asked for nothing in return, just for them to listen. Many people say Daniel Johnston began the Lo-Fi movement. Considered an "outsider musician" Many of his songs in many of his works are set to a Christian theme. You can really tell he has the Fear of God in his songs which range from - incoherent throwaway ditties to brilliant, hopeful melodies. At times his songs are also painfully spooky singing about the same lost love, and on "Yip Jump Music" - He sings about Rocket Ships, Casper the Friendly Ghost, King Kong & of course The Beatles. - That album is good too, but "Songs of Pain..." - I play MOST often of his.
If you are interested in the sound of early lo-fi, or brillant songwriting craftmanship you can't go wrong w/ Daniel Johnston's earliest works. It does eventually grow on you, is catchy and gets stuck in your head. 4-stars

Daniel Johnston is an American singer, songwriter and musician. Johnston suffers from bipolar disorder with psychotic features and religious preoccupation. He has been hospitalized intermittently throughout his adult life and his attempts at independent living have been largely unsuccessful. This two CD sets features two of his early albums, Songs of Pain (1980) and More Songs of Pain (1983). Both of these albums were recorded in his parents' basement, on a cheap home tape recorder. As you might suspect, the sound quality is pretty bad. The music features Daniel singing and accompanying himself on piano. Sometimes you can hear the TV playing in the background (usually turned to an Evangelical Christian program). A few times you can hear his mom yelling at him. As for the music itself, it's actually rather charming. Strange, but charming. Songs of Pain is a better album than More Songs of Pain, but they are both good. If you are interested in "outsider" music, you should give this a listen.

It's easy to realize Daniel Johnston's greatness after listening to this album. His talent shines clear as day and I believe that he belongs in a very select class of musicians like Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Roscoe Holcomb, and other great American songsters. What more can you wish for from a musician but the utmost sincerity and a strong dignity to his or her music. Daniel Johnston bleeds honesty and truth. I've read many people refer to Johnston's music as naïve, there it nothing naïve in these recordings. Naïve are the songs of miscellaneous pop divas singing manufactured songs of love. Naïve are the songs of aging rockers wishing they could change the world. Daniel Johnston's music is an immense treasure trove of palpable spirit and emotion. Whoever digs it up will definitely be rewarded.

Few could argue that Daniel Johnston is an extremely talented songwriter and a truly original and perhaps even great artist. However, due to his unconventional, childlike singing voice, and his lo-fi homemade recordings, many will find his music to be unlistenable. Others, myself one, find that such qualities only add to the charm of his otherwise Beatles-esque pop ballads.

Accompanied by only a piano and recorded in his basement, Songs of Pain: the Early Recordings, is Johnston is at his very best. , on the two discs included in this collection, is at his very best. The amount of emotion that Daniel pours into his music is unrivaled; Kurt Cobain (a fan of Johnston) occasionally comes close, but Johnston, hands down, has him beat. There are times where you can hear Johnston's voice choke up as if he were holding off tears. After one song he actually does break into sobs.

Johnston's sound is difficult to describe. As I said before, the music is accompanied by piano, and is primitively recorded on his two-track in his basement. It's pop music heavily influenced by the Beatles, show tunes, and ragtime. Sometimes it reminds me of an old Mississippi blues singer, someone like Charlie Patton; only Daniel's lyrics are modern tales of teenage angst.Hhis themes as a writer are--his struggles with his Christian faith, girls, loneliness, mental illness, and music itself.

Songs of Pain is by far my favorite Daniel Johnson album, and really is the only one I would consider as being essential to own. Later in his career, Johnston switched from piano to guitar--a move which I did not appreciate. Also, the lo-fi sound here is, I believe, conducive to the emotionality of Daniel's music; his later albums have been cleaned up somewhat by professional production, while here the sound is raw and heartfelt.

I own the originally released recordings, and I must be honest, I do not own the new "remastered" version... but for me, part of the charm of Daniel Johnston has been the crude lo-fi quality of his emotional song gems. I have found myself disliking his later recordings with professional musicians, because it tends to cast him as a "freak" heading a "real band."

I would love to hear someone review the sonic quality of these particlar recordings.

These early home recordings of Daniel Johnston although not professionaly recorded explode with passion and wit. Songs that stand out for me are; from Songs of Pain: "Grievances", "I Save Cigarette Butts", Urge", "Hate Song". From More Songs of Pain: "Phantom of My Own Opera" and "More Dead Than Alive". Daniel is a songwriter's songwriter. He was great right out of the gate and these early recordings prove just that.