Dean Johnson Dreams of ‘Faraway Skies’
Photo: Mike Vanata | Western AF
Written By: Meredith Lawrence
Singer/Songwriter Dean Johnson released his first album on his 50th birthday. In the run-up to the release of 2023’s Nothing for Me, Please, Johnson — with no previous musical internet presence—racked up fans and followers, reaching 33,000 Spotify listeners on the merits of his first singles, alone. Streaming statistics cannot tell the whole story, and Johnson never spiked numbers like a viral TikTok video, but his immediate, sustained resonance with listeners was extraordinary, especially for a near-unknown.
For years, Johnson was one of the best-kept secrets in the local Seattle Americana music scene, enjoying a cult following elsewhere, but no broad national recognition. He worked at Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood staple Al’s Tavern, and played out occasionally. But after “Faraway Skies,” his first single (and still most popular song), that started to change:
Photo: Mike Vanata | Western AF
You wouldn't know by looking at me
I am a cowboy, my friend
I'm forever out riding on the range of my mind
Dreaming away all of my time
…
I got a lightning lasso and my trusty horse blue
I've got a six-shooter too
I have an ol' Stetson hat and a shaggy mustache
Yes I'm at home on the range
Johnson sings as a hapless, underestimated character who dreams of a different life. He started writing lyrics to the song while walking home after a shift one night. Though the “Faraway Skies’” narrator speaks for myriad experiences to listeners who’ve seen themselves in it, for Johnson, he’s always a homeless man, like those he passed on that late-night walk home.
“I hadn’t been responsible with my life to any degree, as far as how I was going to make a living when I was 60 years old”
“At the time I was writing the song, I was feeling like I'll probably be homeless at some point,” he says. “I hadn't been responsible with my life to any degree, as far as how I was going to make a living when I was 60 years old, in an absolutely technological world that I hadn't kept up in; so [I] definitely had the feeling, and I feel like a lot of people do — especially older people — have a sense of having fallen behind.”
Since the album’s release, the track has appeared in an episode of the television show Reservation Dogs and a Tecovas boot company commercial. Johnson’s toured the country, and opened for artists including Jenny Lewis, Nick Shoulders, Blind Pilot, Dylan Earl, and John Craigie; and he’s played Americanafest and Bumbershoot and Pickathon festivals (among others).
Johnson grew up in Seattle, and taught himself to play guitar after his older brother gifted the 14-year-old Johnson a “cheap nylon” acoustic and a few basic chords. As a teenager, Johnson listened to a mix of classic rock and punk music — Michael Jackson, Chuck Berry, The Dead Kennedys, Smashing Pumpkins, Gish, and The Smiths, and of course Nirvana through osmosis (the band was impossible to avoid in Seattle in the late 1980s and early 1990s) — but he didn’t dream of becoming a performing musician.
Through his teens and 20s, even 30s, Johnson dabbled in playing guitar in other bands; he was 40 before he got his own (albeit short-lived band) for the first time, and older still when he joined alt-folk band Sons of Rainier; and he never cultivated the requisite catalogue of cover songs like most fledgling musicians. Instead, Johnson primarily played his own guitar compositions at home, endlessly tweaking them in his head (he doesn’t write his music down, although he does record voice notes to himself). Johnson didn’t even sing much until he wanted to learn Everyly Brothers harmonies around the time he turned 30, when he started recording himself, playing it back to finetune what sounded good.
The result is the arresting, high tenor, Johnson typically sings in. Often accompanied by just his acoustic guitar, Johnson’s work is riveting for its simplicity and canny, quirky portraits of humanity.
Photo: Brian Harrington | Western AF
Nothing for Me, Please opens with “Faraway Skies,” followed by “Acting School,” and “Old TV,” an oddball tale from withing a crush’s thrall, imagining eccentric future adventures. “But maybe we could find some copper / Smashin' up some old TV / Maybe we could harmonize together /On some lonely street,” Johnson sings.
Though heartbreak and melancholy permeate the album (“Acting School,” “Shouldn’t Say Mine,” “True Love,” “Possession,” “Annabelle Goodbye” etc.), Johnson’s offbeat lyrics refresh ancient themes into universal sentiment. The album ends as it began, with a fantastical scene that plays out inside Johnson’s head. This time though, on the album’s title track, Johnson roleplays in a Christian version of eternal life, concluding it’s not for him.
“Faraway Skies” gave voice to the voiceless, and in it Johnson found his voice, too. He’s ready to see where the music takes him. Recently, he recorded his second album, to be released later this year, and this summer he will set out on a tour of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom.
Down on the sidewalk, life passes me by
I've been too slow for these times
But now you'll be knowin', if ya look in my eyes
I'm a cowboy 'neath far-away skies
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