Peek A Boo

Junior High I lost my mind.
I don’t know why. It’s a terrible thing.
Since that day it’s been a struggle
Trying to make sense out of scrambled eggs.

Wait. Huh? Make sense out of scrambled eggs? This is a verse from Daniel Johnston’s “Peek A Boo,” one of his early songs and one which is used in Speeding Motorcycle, Jason Nodler’s mostly fictionalized musical about Johnston. Having seen the play twice in Houston (once with Johnston himself sitting behind me, singing along), I figured I should see how the Austin production compared. My quick review: Overall, the show was better in Houston, but the bits with Kathy McCarty in Austin were well worth the drive.

Anyway, back to the eggs. There are lots of lines in Johnston’s songs that just seem to come out of nowhere, which hit you a little sideways and force you to either find an explanation or just dismiss them as the ramblings of a crazy man. The play uses a few of these for comedic effect. But, what’s he talking about there with this “scrambled eggs” business? Is he talking about his mixed-up thoughts? He has certainly written plenty of other songs with lyrics which refer to his mental condition, so that would be a good guess, but I don’t think that’s the whole story here.

Earlier this week, I watched American Idol, where the theme–for the second week–was Beatles songs. Sure, listening to Idol contestants mangle Beatles songs is annoying (though hardly more annoying than their mangling of any other song), but the real soul killer is the Beatles hype. For some reason, when the Beatles are involved it’s necessary to rehash all the useless Beatle trivia. For sheer obsession, only Dylan’s fans can compare, but whereas Dylan’s fans just trade notes about his lyrics and try to glean meaning, Beatles fans collect any detail remotely associated with their heroes. And they will gladly pay top dollar for it. Go to any record convention and it won’t take you long to find the Beatles collectors. They will be the ones with the buttons and jackets and dolls and lunchboxes and, and, and. Try not to be creeped out, I dare you. There seems to be no satiating a Beatles fan’s appetite for more bits and pieces of a forty-plus-year-old cultural phenomenon. And just when you think there couldn’t be anything else, those wily surviving Beatles will release a multi-hour documentary, or several box sets of outtakes, or–when all the source material has been thoroughly mined–a mash-up album with–what? What would be really crazy here? How about a Vegas show with Canadian mimes? That should do it. Nothing could be more ridiculous than that. Or so you think. Just you wait, they’ll think of something.

So after one of the contestants performed “Blackbird,” Simon Cowell pulled some trivia out of his ass (he’d probably call it an arse) about the song originally being about a sparrow. I’d never heard that bit before and since there is so much Beatle minutiae out there, I’m skeptical about this story because by now I would have heard it several times if it were there to be heard. By contrast, when another contestant performed “Yesterday” (notice the focus on the sappy McCartney numbers), Randy Jackson mentioned that the original title was “Scrambled Eggs,” a bit of trivia with which I was well familiar, but had managed to forget. He might well have gone on about how that song came from one of McCartney’s dreams and how, for a time, he was convinced that it wasn’t original. No, Randy didn’t mention any of that, but my brain filled in all those pieces as soon it heard the anecdote about the title.

Now, brain filled with Beatles gunk, I watched the Daniel Johnston play again. And that line made sense:

Trying to make sense out of yesterday

Too much of a stretch? Well, let’s not forget that as Beatles fans go, Daniel Johnston easily ranks as an alpha-obsessive. You don’t need to go further than his many lyrical references–or heck, whole songs–about the Beatles to realize this:

When I was born in ’61
They already had a hit
They worked so hard and they
Made it too
They really were very good
They deserved all their success
They earned it yes they did they didn’t
Buy their respect
And everybody wanted to be like them
Everybody wanted to be the Beatles
And I really wanted to be like him
But he died
A legendary rock group
Like history now to read
Like a magical fairy tale that’s hard to believe
But it really did happen
Four lads who shook the world
God bless them for what they done
God bless them for what they done
–”Beatles” Yip/Jump Music (1983)

There’s little doubt that a Beatles fan like Johnston knew the original title of “Yesterday” and it’s not that surprising that he would appropriate it and use it in a clever way with multiple layers of meaning. It only seems crazy. As tempting as it is for some to paint him as a guileless manchild, I think he realizes that crazy sells. Crazy is what has made Johnston the rock star that he believes he is. You have to imagine that making a living by playing up all the his psychological shortcomings is one bitter lithium pill for him to swallow. But swallow it he does. I’ve seen Johnston onstage several times recently and one of his favorite things to do is to give the Hitler salute to the audience. You’d have to be crazy to try something like that, right? Can you imagine Beyoncé peppering her between song banter with a few Seig Heils? It’s an instant career ender, unless you’re crazy, because Hitler is über-evil. His evil has comic book supervillain proportions. And anybody familiar with Daniel Johnston will tell you that he knows a thing or two about comic books. So Johnston is selling you crazy. And you buy it. Everybody wins.