DANIEL JOHNSTON
Songs of Pain
(Stress Records)
The first song on Songs of Pain is "Grievances," a lo-fi recording of a man playing tinny but smooth piano and singing a sort of wacky folk ballad. He's got an interesting voice—really high, with a Southern accent and conversational delivery—and the song makes sense, mostly. "I saw you at the funeral/You were standing there like a temple/I said, 'Hi, how are you, hello'/And I pulled up the casket and crawled in." It's goofy and sweet and gets you excited about what's to come.
In the second track, things go a certain way: a retelling of the story of Christianity. Okay, sure. It starts to sound less carefully written, it gives you a prickle of a question in your head, but you have to hear it to understand why. "He never did bad to anyone/He never did no wrong" could work in tons of music, but something's different here. Who is this guy?
