Ok, since everybody else is being brave...

[loopysanchez]

... I figure I'll throw one of my latest efforts out there for you guys to critique.

It's simply titled "Daniel Johnston". He's a folk-pop singer out of Austin who basically lost his mind a couple of decades ago, due to a combination of fragile brain chemistry, large amounts of LSD, and an unhealthy obsession with a girl he met in college. So I revisited a prominent crush I had on a girl a half-life ago, and wondered if I might have ended up just as messed up as Johnston if the same circumstances had lined up right.

If you've seen the documentary on his life, this song will make perfect sense. If not, hopefully you'll find the imagery interesting and the rhymes clever. The verses consist of two four-bar stanzas, and the rhyme scheme is ABCD-ABCD.


“Daniel Johnston” © 2007 Don Henderson
Just how close did I come
To being your personal Daniel Johnston?
I don’t think I want to know
I don’t think you do either

My chords more cleanly strummed
But obsession just as constant
The recovery just as slow
For your truest believer

CHORUS
I’m not feeling ashamed now
And I’m not feeling insane now
I’m not bringing the plane down
And I’m not looking to flame out

I could’ve written songs
About how much I loved you
I could’ve write songs about
How much I loved Mountain Dew

But that would only work so long
Before you’d end up more scared than amused
And your face would leave no doubts
And my mind would be that much more bruised

CHORUS

I could’ve taken too much LSD
And screamed at the devil
In a cold December river
To ring in the New Year

But it’s just never been like me
To mess with my chemical levels
Slaying demons as I shiver;
God’s voice inside my ears

CHORUS

I could’ve drawn cartoon pictures
A strange, eclectic mixture
Battles of good and evil;
Captain America saves the day

I could’ve been an alt-rock fixture
Worshipped by the hipsters
For my sanity’s upheaval
And my physical decay

CHORUS

I could’ve ended up living with my parents
I could’ve ended up ended up fat and diabetic
If you’d smiled at me one more time
I’d need so many medications

But now I’m just sane and embarrassed
But happy this song’s not prophetic
And my brain still knows how to rhyme
Long after that old devastation

CHORUS

[Deleted]

i like it a lot, with just two problems. the mountain dew verse, because it just sounds wrong to me, and the last verse, because the line 'and my brain still knows how to rhyme', because the song, for the most part, doesn't. not that that is a bad thing, i just think that if you say that your brain can still rhyme, even just that line should rhyme with something. but i think it works as a song. people who haven't seen the devil and daniel johnston probably won't get most of the song, but those who have will know exactly what you mean.

this is a really bad post, i know. it's 07.37 here, and i'm at work so my brain isn't really awake yet. i'll try to post something more constructive when i get home. in 11 and a half hours...... ugh.

ps

i'm a big fan of daniels songs, but not his versions of them....... does that make sense?

[loopysanchez]

Actually, Connington, the whole song rhymes, just in a 'round the bend kind of way. The verses consist of two four-bar stanzas, and each line of the first stanza rhymes with the corresponding line of the second stanza of the pair.

In the last verse, for example:
_________________________________
I could’ve ended up living with my parents
I could’ve ended up ended up fat and diabetic
If you’d smiled at me one more time
I’d need so many medications

But now I’m just sane and embarrassed
But happy this song’s not prophetic
And my brain still knows how to rhyme
Long after that old devastation
_________________________

"Parents" is a forced rhyme with "Embarassed"
"Diabetic" rhymes with "Prophetic"
"Time" rhymes with "Rhyme"
"Medications" rhymes with "Devastation".

It's one of those rhyme schemes that probably won't hit people when they're reading the lyrics, but should hopefully stand out a little better in real time when I'm playing it... which should happen as soon as I find some chords and a melody--Might be next week, might be ten years...

I tend to agree with your assessment of the "Mountain Dew" line & verse. I put that in as a reference to the song Johnston wrote in praise of that beverage during one of his stays at a mental health facility. But it's definitely an inside joke, for lack of a better term, and I wasn't sure if the song would get dragged down by it. And I agree that the entire verse is probably the weakest in the song, which is bad since in some sense it serves as the focal point of the comparison the whole song's about.


Muchas gracias for the input!

[Deleted]

ah, i see the rhyming now. i'll just go hang my head in shame. makes a lot more sense as a song now. i retract my previous statement. well done sir

[Deleted]

by the way, have you heard pearl jams version of walking the cow? just shows how good his songs would have been if he had the ability to back them up. actually, he wasn't a bad pianist.......

[loopysanchez]

I haven't heard PJ's version of that. (I don't think I've heard the original, either.) I've really only heard a few DJ songs, and most of those were during the course of "The Devil and Daniel Johnston", the doccumentary that inspired my song. I might see if I can find the album with various bands covering his stuff, and see if it's more tolerable than his own singing and playing. Is the PJ song on that one?

[Deleted]

it should be. that documentary is inspiring though. even if it only inspires you to not do drugs, or crash planes.