Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him. – Antonin Artaud

You can’t talk about Daniel Johnston’s art without talking about Daniel Johnston, and about the demons and angels he brings to the table. His mental illness, his obsessions, his rudimentary playing and recording abilities – all become assets, and all contribute to the creation of his drawings and his music, which serve as both his refuge from the world and his passageway into it. Johnston has walked along (and fallen off) the edge for an exhaustingly long time; it’s his art, as much as anything else, that’s kept him tethered to life and allowed him to express what he sees in the benign and malignant hellions he faces every day. Continue reading »