GIRL MUSIC 006: Daniel Johnston | An Artist Fighting a Human in the Ring
“I could not stay. And all the while, she was smiling at me. Like I was a show on her TV.”
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Words: Juno Rylee Schultz (she/her)
Edits: Morgan Shaver (they/them), Nathan Miller (he/him), and Bex Stump (she/her)
“I forgot to grow up, I guess. I’m a simple kind of guy, just like a child, drawing pictures and making up songs, playing around all the time.”
Daniel Johnston speaking about his life and career in an interview with Rolling Stone (November 3, 1994, Issue 694)
Daniel Johnston is an immortal fixture inside folk music, punk rock, and outsider art, and a shining example of an artist that left an indelible impact on everyone he met.
This is the story of an artist.
Born in Sacramento, California, but raised in New Cumberland, West Virginia, Daniel Johnston was the youngest of five siblings and had a piano in the living room.
Johnston found a mixture of support, enthusiasm, and exhaustion for his obsession with creating art, but it was a good home filled with love.
Around the edges of everyone’s patience with Dan was a concern for his well-being, considering the disdain he showed for working.
There was a belief everyone held that Daniel would eventually need to “grow up” and be productive in the world.
But Daniel didn’t want to do anything that could be described as “normal.”
Daniel Johnston only wanted to create art.
Daniel Johnston was often at the top of his class in school, but he started to become outcast more for his quirkiness and differences, once junior high school started. It was here when Daniel started to learn there were more weirdo kids—just like him—that were equally interested in creating art and laughing at the absurdities of daily life.
“I was sort of the “star art” guy at Oak Glen High School, and I started hearing rumors of this “the new art star,” you know, the new kid in town. I had to find out who this was. A friend of mine told me, ‘there’s this kid, Dan Johnston, he can really draw, he’s a musician or something.’
David Thornberry, David’s best friend in high school
So he kind of had one up on me; he was a musician. The guy is a natural, an absolute natural. He never even had to learn to draw. He just got better from great. You know, I had to hang out with this guy. I had to be around this art. So we just started hanging out and doing art together, actually.
The eyeball thing [The Dead Dog Eyeball] was sort of like his intro calling card. It was his mysterious entry. Everybody was like ‘who’s the eyeball guy,’ you know, because Daniel was painting these eyeballs everywhere. He would actually draw on walls all over the high school. Daniel, he just exudes art. He can’t stop making art. He never sits and thinks, ‘what am I gonna do?’ He just grabs something.”
Daniel’s art was existential, exploring the human psyche, but he would also use humor to mock the presence of authority, which at this time largely included his teachers, school, and parents.
There was clear benefit from the structure of school, church, and household chores surrounding Daniel but simultaneously, Johnston thrived when allowed to ignore the responsibilities of daily life.
“Dan’s hard to deal with sometimes. He thought, ‘I’m artistic. I shouldn’t have to do those things.’
Daniel’s Mom, Mabel Ruth Voyles Johnston, speaking about his childhood
He wanted to be comic all the time. He just couldn’t get over it. He took himself seriously. He thought he was going to be an artist probably, well because of the attention he got. The family room would sometimes be almost full of kids, and one of them told me that [Daniel’s] gonna be famous someday. And I thought, that silly stuff, you know?“
Daniel lived in the basement, which served as his dedicated space for sleeping and creating art.
As David Thornberry explains it, “[Daniel’s parents had] this perfectly normal ranch house, out in the country behind New Cumberland. He’s got this amazing lab, like this amazing factory. He’s turned a garage and two sort of utility rooms into a bedroom and an art factory.”
Daniel literally covered the walls—everywhere the eye could see—in magazine clippings. Stacks of cassette tapes littered all the surfaces around him. All he needed to spend to create art here was time, and that’s what he did.
It was this magical room, where anything was possible, including sleep—when it was absolutely necessary.
Daniel’s evangelical upbringing from his family was a source of musical inspiration, and a well of water he could draw from, but he was completely disconnected from it spiritually.
It was a loving and mostly supportive home. There was, however, a disconnect between Dan and his parents over how much time he spent obsessing over his art.
“Bill and I both thought he was doing too much concentrating on the art, and the music, and he wasn’t having a well-rounded life.”
Mabel Johnston speaking about the stresses of raising Daniel
He’d go to church so he could stare at the girls, try to find a girlfriend. Literally, all he cared about was making art.
“They’re sort of like this Christian fundamentalist Glass family. They’re creative, they’re intellectual, but there’s this, like, kind of right-wing Christian thing. Daniel wasn’t havin’ any of it.
Spiritually he was separated from them, socially, every other way, he was gone from them. But at the same time, he was of them, in the sense that he had certain material to draw from.
[Daniel’s Mom] would constantly try to get him, ‘Go to church and save yourself,’ and he just would have none of it. He’d go to church, even, but he wouldn’t participate. He’d go to church so he could stare at the girls, try to find a girlfriend.
Literally, all he cared about was making art and being John Lennon, and his parents’ rules were in the way of that. All he wanted them to do was just keep the lights on, keep the power on, so he could draw.”
David Thornberry speaking about Daniel’s place inside his family
After graduating from Oak Glen High School, Daniel unsuccessfully attended Abilene Christian University, in West Texas, but it immediately became clear how crucial family and familiarity was for Daniel’s mental health. Dan’s feelings of depression became worse while he was away, which led to pain in his hands and arms—a symptom in manic depression.
He was also consistently missing classes. He felt lost.
Dan’s parents had him return home and got him medical care, which resulted in a formal diagnosis of manic depression. His Mom and Dad also helped him enroll at Kent State University, a closer and more local college, returning a form of structure and artistic expression to his life.
Daniel immediately connected with the quirky, weird art students, which he globbed onto, for characters and inspiration in his short films, art, and music.
Everyone in Dan’s life was subject to be part of his art and projects, at any time—and this would include Laurie more than anyone else, for the rest of Daniel Johnston’s life.
Laurie became a lifelong muse for Dan, even more so when she married her boyfriend, who was, poetically, a funeral director. It all caused pieces of Daniel Johnston’s heart and soul to crack and bleed outwardly; art began pouring out of Daniel, faster than ever before.
“I was alone in my life with little to live for, trying my hand at art, thinking that maybe I could save myself, but in my desperation, all my hope would fly away, until there was nothing left of me—nothing left to say.
And in this nightmare, there was a dream, of a girl so beautiful beyond compare. The girl of my dreams. Laurie.
She inspired a thousand songs, and then I knew I was an artist.”
Daniel Johnston speaking about his life in ‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston,’ 2005
Daniel was rotting away in his family’s basement, no school, no structure, which caused his entire family to worry about him even more.
His brother, Dave Johnston, convinced their parents to send Daniel out to his house, in Houston, Texas, thinking different scenery—and a summer job at an amusement park near his house—might bring Daniel back to reality, and help him pick up the pieces.
“I had lost my mind.
I lost my head for a while was off my rocker outta line, outta wack.
See I had this tiny crack in my head
That slowly split open and my brain snoozed out,
Lyin’ on the sidewalk and I didn’t even know it.
I had lost my mind.Why, i was sitting in the basement when I first realized it was gone.
Got I my car rushed right over to the lost and found.
I said “pardon me but I seem to have lost my mind.”
She said “Well can you identify it please?”
I said “Why sure its a cute little bugger
About yea big a little warped from the rain”
She said “Well then sir this must be your brain”
I said “Thank you ma’am I’m always losin’ that dang thing.”I had lost my mind.”
Lyrics for “I Had Lost My Mind,” Daniel Johnston, 1982
Instead Daniel delved even deeper into the creation of art and music, with no intentions of slowing down—even if he no longer had access to a piano.
Daniel set up an organ in his brother’s garage and immediately began using it to put together YIP/JUMP MUSIC, the album he was sure would be a musical masterpiece.
“Walking down the road, I’m feeling lonely.
But don’t be sad.
Be glad you’re just one step closer.
To the girl you’re going to meet”
“How’s it going, Dave? I’m working on the album now. On the new release, Yip/Jump Music. I sound like some kind of MTV person, don’t I? I brought out the chord organ. I just set it up [on your weight bench].”
Daniel speaking to his brother on a tape recording, 1982
Dan’s brother began to grow exhausted with Dan’s complete lack of interest in working on anything except music and art in the garage.
“I knew he was recording. I could hear him singing. But I had no perception that he was, you know, in his mind, making this masterpiece.
I wanted to help Dan and I thought I was giving him great, prophetic advice. I said, ‘Dan, you know, someday you’re gonna be really good at something and very successful. But it’s not gonna be your art, and it’s not gonna be your music.”
We had to say, ‘Look, Dan, you can’t stay up all night. You’re gonna have to go to bed at some kind of decent hour. And kind of live life with the rest of us.
Dave Johnston speaking about when Daniel lived with him
This resulted in Daniel moving in with his sister Margie, on a mattress on her floor. While she may have lacked furniture and space, the lack of expectations provided Daniel with the supportive and stable environment he needed.
He just made weird art and music, until he disappeared with the carnival—on a moped he had saved up and purchased.
No one in Daniel’s family knew where he was, until he called from a pay phone on Father’s Day to provide everyone with an update.
He was with the carnival, and everything was okay.
“Yeah, I miss home. I’m down here and I’m okay. Because wherever I am, I got music in my heart.”
Daniel Johnston speaking on a journal recording while in the carnival
But then Daniel left the carnival, even more mysteriously than he arrived, while simultaneously traveling to Austin, Texas.
The way Daniel Johnston made it to Austin, Texas is as mythical as the rest of his story. The carnival traveled to Austin, and someone who didn’t like how long Daniel was taking in a porta-potty punched him in the face.
Daniel needed medical attention and wandered away from the carnival, looking for a Church of Christ to ask for help.
Eventually he happened upon the University Church of Christ, who brought him to a doctor before leasing him an apartment in the city.
While in downtown Austin, Daniel learned about Glass Eye, a local band that was surging in popularity—with weird eyeballs all over their concert flyers.
Mesmerized in part by the eyeball iconography, Johnston attends a show and gives Kathy McCarty a cassette tape copy of ‘HI, HOW ARE YOU.’
At the next show, assuming she had listened to the tape, Daniel begged and pleaded to open for Glass Eye, at the band’s next show.
“[Daniel] came to the show and gave me a cassette tape copy of [‘HI, HOW ARE YOU.’]
So the next time we played, he came over to me, and he was so excited. You could tell he was like, screwing up his nerve getting ready to ask me what I thought of his music. He came over and he goes, ‘What’d you think?’
And I looked at him, and I just couldn’t really let him know how much of an asshole I really was, that I hadn’t even listened to his music, his most important thing in his life. And I said, ‘it was great. I loved it. You can totally open for us.’
I went home, and I listened to [Hi, How Are You], and I was blown away at its incredible genius.”
Kathy McCarty speaking about when meeting Daniel Johnston
Daniel was nervous at the show, but his passion and performance were as infectious as the folksy melodies he was laying down for the crowd that evening.
Johnston had also just switched to playing the guitar, instead of the piano, a result of the instrument’s popularity in the Austin music scene, but the portability of the strings served him well.
“… Do yourself a favor: become your own savior
And don’t let the sun go down on your grievances
And when you wake up in the morning
You’ll have a brand-new feeling
And you’ll find yourself healing
So don’t let the sun go down on your grievances…”
“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Grievances,” Daniel Johnston, 1983
Daniel’s willingness to be authentic and vulnerable with his audience was a key part of his success, as he began to become known all around Austin, TX, locally famous, in a busy and bustling music scene.
It also probably helped that Johnston had casually met and befriended Louis Black, editor at the Austin Chronicle.
“I met Daniel Johnston, in kind of the classic Daniel Johnston way. It was a Saturday. I was working at the Austin Chronicle. I was alone in the office and I was sitting there writing, and I heard somebody at the door. Not a knock. But somebody like, shuffling at the door. Finally, I went over and opened the door and Daniel was standing there. And he was this skinny, little kid who looked fairly demented. And he had a tape. And he said, ‘I just wanted to give you my tape.’
Louis Black, editor at the Austin Chronicle, speaking about his early relationship with Daniel
So I said, ‘Great, I’ll give it to a music person. If they like it, maybe we’ll review it, but I’m not promising anything.’
And Daniel goes, ‘You know, I wasn’t really giving you that to review. I just wanted you to listen to it. I’m not trying to get a review or anything.’
So Daniel goes away. And I put it on the tape player, and it just blew my mind. It was just one of those things that I got right away. And so then he gives you ‘Hi, How Are You’ and ‘Yip/Jump Music.’
It’s like, you know, imagine meeting Bob Dylan, and he gives you his first six albums and says, ‘Oh, here’s some stuff I’m working on.’
So it’s this body of music where you’re suddenly hearing twenty amazing songs and… and they’re out of nowhere from this weird little guy. I played [the tapes from Daniel] for a lot of other music writers, and some musicians, and he was giving it to other musicians, and gradually over like a period of weeks, people began to talk a lot about who this crazy kid was … Daniel Johnston and this really weird music.
Daniel Johnston is cleaning tables and greeting customers at McDonald’s just as the 1985 Austin music scene and Daniel’s mental health were both about to burst, after years of built up, creative pressure.
Daniel had arrived in town after literally being abandoned by the carnival, and the artists scheduled to perform were already selected, and yet Johnston still managed to speech-check his way onto MTV’s The Cutting Edge.
Decades later, there’s no denying that Daniel Johnston stole the entire special.
Daniel’s career begins to blow up; Spin magazine and other music publications were all calling the McDonald’s that Johnston worked at.
It’s the only way to reach Daniel, because he didn’t have his own phone.
1986 arrives, and Daniel wins Songwriter of the Year and Best Folk Act at the Austin Music Awards. This causes some controversy in the music scene, as some felt the awards should have perhaps went to a more traditional or established musical act.
Daniel’s confidence and ego both receive a healthy boost from the state honors and national recognition. The pressure also brings Daniel closer to drugs, instability, and erratic behavior.
“I’m gonna go for it. I really am.
It’s really happening. It’s really happened. I really was on MTV.
I really am … going, you know?”
Daniel speaking to himself on a personal cassette recording, 1986
Dan starts performing live less, which was essentially his last anchor to reality, and begins doing more drugs with Randy Kemper, his manager at the time. This leads to an episode where Johnston randomly and suddenly strikes Kemper, with a pipe—three times—after taking acid at a Butthole Surfers show.
Dan’s disconnection to reality grew worse at Christmas time, with his behavior becoming so concerning that his brother and sister—who Daniel was spending Christmas with that year—were forced to have him removed by the police.
Soon afterwards, Louis Black, Daniel’s friend from the Austin Chronicle, was called by the University of Texas. Daniel was standing in the middle of a stream, next to the campus, proselytizing, with eyes that looked pure white—no pupils in sight—completely removed from reality, and his mind.
Black had an actual fever—of 103 degrees—and was at home, barely conscious, but he arrived on the scene immediately, fully aware of how much Daniel Johnston needed him.
It was a complicated situation, something that gave Black great struggle, but he ultimately decided, with the city, that committing Johnston into a mental health facility was the best course of action.
“What was I doing down there? What was going on?
Well, I knew exactly what was going on.
I wanted to take my life only a few nights before. I hit my best friend over the head with a lead pipe.
I thought there was nowhere to go.
I thought the military takeover was going to happen over Christmas time. But it didn’t. You know what I mean?”
Daniel Johnston speaking in an recorded interview shortly after the University of Texas Christmas incident, from a mental health facility
Daniel was standing in the stream … completely removed from reality …
“All great artists are crazy, but there’s a difference between the abstract, great artist being crazy, and this person doing damage to you, or to himself, and how involved do you wanna be?
We’d spent our whole lives, [all of us] are the kind of people who love the notion of the crazy artist. You know, Van Gogh cutting off his ear.
And we’ve read those books, and we’ve, you know, collected the art, and we’ve seen the movies, and we [as a society] really loved the crazy people, because they were the pure people. You know, they don’t have any commercial sense.
And yet, [Daniel] was a real, sick person. And it was really, ‘What are we gonna do?’
And so, I mean, we do the most pedestrian thing possible: we commit him.
And you actually felt, I mean, a certain amount of guilt. I mean, it was like, if I was around Van Gogh … you know, I’ve always had contempt for those people, who didn’t understand genius, and here I am, given my shot, and what I’m saying is, ‘please put him in the hospital cause we don’t wanna have to deal with him. We don’t know what to do.”
Louis Black speaking about the University of Texas Christmas incident, in 2005, for The Devil and Daniel Johnston
Jeff Tartakov, who had previously been acting as unofficial publicist for Daniel, came to visit him at Austin State Hospital. He took over as Daniel’s manager, when the hospital asked what his relationship was to Johnston, correctly assuming Randy Kemper was no longer managing him.
At that time, Daniel seemed okay, and like he didn’t need to be there any longer, and so Tartakov helped Johnston check out of the facility.
Though this later proved to maybe not have been the best idea at the time.
Daniel’s separation from reality became worse, and he started obsessing over the appearance of the devil in numbers everywhere, and in people too, almost randomly.
What concerned Tartakov the most though was when Daniel started getting rid of all of his possessions. That was when he believed Daniel was going to end his life, and he reached out to Daniel’s parents, back in West Virginia.
Dan referred to 1987 as his “Lost Year,” having spent nearly the entire year on medication, but with the help of his parents and treatment, his health improved—especially after the University of Pittsburgh performed testing on Daniel, which led to him being put on more effective medication.
While Daniel was recovering, Tartakov had been working to introduce Johnston’s music to influential indie bands.
After ample recovery time, Johnston traveled to New York City, at the invitation of Steve Shelley, of Sonic Youth, and Jad Fair, of Half Japanese, punk bands local to the area that were eager to spend time with Daniel.
Jad Fair had also set up a recording session with Moe Tucker, drummer from the Velvet Underground, while work shopping possible plans to work with Daniel Johnston on their record label.
It all fell apart though, after Daniel’s mental health became worse, which culminated at an emotionally-charged performance where Johnston preached at and broke down, during songs, in front of the majority of New York City’s indie rock and art scene in attendance.
After a falling out with Steve Shelley and Sonic Youth, Daniel runs away, fearful of his parents being notified, knowing he would be committed to a mental hospital again. He wasn’t ready to leave yet. In his mind, the devil was trying to stop Daniel from reaching success in New York City.
There were several days during this time where Daniel was missing, homeless, off his meds, and even performing randomly—including a pop-up concert at CBGB’s.
Everyone was worried about Daniel, looking for him, including Sonic Youth, and Johnston was still in pursuit of stardom.
Eventually some friends are able to get Daniel onto a bus back home, to his parent’s house, where he is immediately hospitalized.
Tartakov believes Daniel was released too soon, which is confirmed for sure in August 1988.
Daniel traveled to Maryland to record an album with Jad Fair—of Half Japanese—which resulted in IT’S SPOOKY (Spotify | YouTube), as well as ‘My Dinner with Daniel,’ a short film produced during the trip.
Daniel’s mental health problems became clear to everyone—and the law—after his visit ended, on the bus ride back home to his parents in West Virginia.
He got off the bus a few hours early, off his meds and paranoid, believing that everyone around him was Satan, which led to an argument with an elderly woman, when Dan was downstairs outside, rummaging in the trash cans.
She yelled at him to be quiet, and then he went upstairs to talk to her. She feared for her life, and jumped out the window of her home. Dan, in his manic episode, believed he was chasing a demon, which is also what “threw” the woman from her window.
She broke her ankle, and the police put Daniel back in the mental hospital.
Dan’s stay in the West Virginia mental hospital was a productive visit. He sent countless tape recordings and written correspondence to his manager, including a request to become the spokesperson for Mountain Dew.
Daniel is released in 1990, and is invited to play an Austin Music Awards Show, now a living legend in the state of Texas, and the music scene in general. His manager had been pushing Daniel’s music, and the stories of Daniel’s mental health stays and brushes with the law had already become legends to many in the music scene.
Daniel and his Dad fly to Texas in a small, two-seat airplane, where Johnston performed at the 9th annual Austin Music Awards—at Palmer Auditorium—as well as two record store appearances.
On the way back home, Daniel experiences a manic episode—off his meds unbeknownst to all around him—believing he was Casper the Friendly Ghost, and that he and his Dad needed to parachute out of the airplane.
There were no parachutes, but Dan was convinced of this plan of action. And he was stronger than his Dad.
Thankfully, Bill’s military training had imbued in him the knowledge to safely crash land between two trees, saving the lives of the two men—inside the wreckage of the situation and destroyed airplane.
It’s 1992. Daniel’s in the mental hospital—again—after recovering from the plane crash, this time in Waller, Texas, where his parents have also relocated. Daniel has been focused on recovery and rest, except Daniel Johnston is suddenly back on MTV, front and center stage.
And then again in magazines and photo shoots. Everywhere. Out of nowhere.
Nirvana is the number one band in the world, and Kurt Cobain is standing front and center stage, at the 1992 MTV VMA’s, wearing a t-shirt bearing the cover art of Daniel Johnston’s HI, HOW ARE YOU.
Daniel Johnston had achieved the impossible, simultaneously in a mental hospital, on MTV, and on the world stage.
And Kurt Cobain kept wearing the Daniel Johnston t-shirt, throughout all of 1992, in every interview the rock star gave, and essentially every photo shoot that happened.
It was intentional on Kurt Cobain’s part; the punk rock artist was even holding his hand up, the same way that Daniel Johnston had, when he first appeared on MTV, seven years earlier, on The Cutting Edge.
A million-dollar bidding war—from multiple record labels—began for Daniel Johnston and his music, all while he was still inside the mental hospital.
A deal was all but signed with Elektra, a record label that was interested in a career with Daniel. The contract even prioritized Johnston’s mental health, promising not to trap him under pressure, to record or perform live.
Daniel’s deal with Elektra, as well as his professional relationship with Jeff Tartakov, both fell apart for the same reason everything always seemed to fall apart in Daniel’s life. Satan. The Devil.
Daniel learned about Metallica being on Elektra’s artist roster, and was worried the band was going to kill him. There were references to the devil in the band’s music, and that was enough to convince Daniel that the record label—and his manager, who wanted Daniel to sign with the label—were working against Daniel, and for the devil.
DANIEL JOHNSTON’S BATTLES AGAINST SATAN
Dan’s career may have fizzled out in the commercial spotlight, but as an outsider artist, his legacy was secure. His name and music were legendary—particularly with other artists and songwriters.
Daniel had done it. He had become a legend, famous even, and while he was still alive to see it happen. Johnston enjoyed decades of international touring, and was even able to secure a home for his parents—something he had wanted to do, since he was little kid, long before he even knew that he would actually become an artist.
The impact and legacy of Daniel Johnston is absolutely incalculable, with an endless amount of artists having covered Johnston’s music, and shared their stories and memories with the world.
In a 1994 interview with Rolling Stone—twenty-five years prior to Daniel Johnston’s exit from this world—Kathy McCarty remarked on the history, art, and legacy of Daniel, in the most authentic, gentle, and touching way.
I think it’s my favorite way to eulogize an immortal and rare artist like Daniel Johnston, who may be dead, but will also never really die.
“Most of the people who are big Daniel Johnston fans are other song-writers. The first time I heard [Hi, How Are You], it was like ‘This guy is an incredible, genius songwriter.’ You can look at some of his songs and go, ‘What a great arrangement, what a great middle eight, what a great turn of phrase!’ I never thought he was like a freak show or like ‘Listen to this guy have a nervous breakdown on this record.“
Kathy McCarty speaking about the eternal legacy and art of Daniel Johnston
When Daniel Johnston passed, the world paid their respects.
“Daniel was a singer, songwriter, an artist, and a friend to all. Although he struggled with mental health issues for much of his adult life, Daniel triumphed over his illness through his prolific output of art and songs. He inspired countless fans, artists, and songwriters with his message that no matter how dark the day, ‘the sun shines down on me’ and ‘true love will find you in the end.’”
From Rolling Stone’s 2019 article eulogizing Daniel Johnston
In the years since Johnston’s tragic death, his legacy has only continued to endure, with Daniel’s surviving family carefully curating new releases of music, from the endless stack left behind, as he was constantly making art, right up until the very end.
This has also included posthumous honors and recognition for Daniel’s contributions to art and music, all over, since Daniel was a local man about town, in Texas, West Virginia, and everywhere he went.
This has included Johnston being honored by the West Virginia Hall of Fame, as one of the 2025 inductees, classified as “indie darling, singer songwriter, Daniel Johnston.”
I think he would have really liked that.
notable interviews from Daniel Johnston:
1. Daniel Johnston popping up on MTV’s The Cutting Edge, 1985
- Nardwuar vs. Daniel Johnston interview, 2009
- Daniel Johnston Interview at Austin City Limits, 2009
- Short documentary from 2004
- The Devil and Daniel Johnston, 2005
notable live performances from Daniel Johnston:
- Daniel Johnston’s first appearance on MTV, The Cutting Edge 1985
- Daniel Johnston “Funeral Home” Live (1986)
- Daniel & Kathy SxSW, 1995
- NPR Tiny Desk Concert
- Daniel Johnston True Love Will Find You in the End, Sydney 2010
- Daniel Johnston, Jeff Tweedy Wilco, Walking the Cow, 2017
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