{"id":1903,"date":"2019-09-27T08:40:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T07:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1903"},"modified":"2019-09-24T13:49:09","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T12:49:09","slug":"song-of-the-week-spirit-world-rising-by-daniel-johnston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1903","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Spirit World Rising&#8221; by Daniel Johnston"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is &#8220;Spirit World Rising&#8221; by Daniel Johnston:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p class=\"responsive-video-wrap clr\"><iframe title=\"Daniel Johnston-Spirit World Rising\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l3rzKsXnS-E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier this month, the wonderful and unique songwriter and performer Daniel Johnston died. It&#8217;s hard to say much more about the passing of someone who made such fragile, beautiful, sad, uplifting music than it&#8217;s sad, because it&#8217;s sad. Last week I was reading <em>Original Rockers<\/em> by Richard King, which is a thoughtful and lyrical memoir of the author&#8217;s time working at Revolver record shop in Bristol, though in fact, the book is much more than that brief description implies. In any case, the book ends&#8211;spoiler alert&#8211;thus: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>From a recess in my mind that this journey to Revolver had unlocked I heard the opening chords of a song, &#8216;The Spirit World Rising&#8217; by Daniel Johnston, which I had played incessantly within these four walls so many years before. At that moment I felt that the spirit world had risen in a ghost dance and we were moving together, in time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Songs and books mark moments in time, but they also move with us, change shape with us, reshape us and our moments in time, as we go, with them. <br><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Spirit%20World%20Rising%22%20by%20Daniel%20Johnston\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Spirit World Rising&#8221; by Daniel Johnston: Earlier this month, the wonderful and unique songwriter and performer Daniel Johnston died. It&#8217;s hard to say much more about the passing of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Spirit%20World%20Rising%22%20by%20Daniel%20Johnston\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1904,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1903\/revisions\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}