After 10 years as YouTube’s ‘song-a-day guy,’ St. Paul musician still keeps things low-key

Jared Kaufman, Pioneer Press
·5 min read
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Three thousand, six hundred, and fifty-two songs in, Zachary Scot Johnson faced a dilemma.

On his YouTube channel, called thesongadayproject, Johnson records a song, from scratch, every single day. Sometimes a cover, sometimes an original, but never a duplicate, if he can avoid it — and he himself performs every instrument and vocal part. Combined, his videos have racked up more than 42 million views.

On September 6, 2022, the project reached 10 straight years of daily music. So, what song should mark this milestone?

For video 3,653, he made an exception to his rule and revisited “Catch the Wind,” by the Scottish musician Donovan: The same song was video 1, in 2012.

“I do like the idea of doing it every day, for as long as I live,” he said on a recent afternoon. “There are some people who really think that’s crazy, but the same people would tell you that doing 10 years is crazy.”

Here is Zachary Scot Johnson’s YouTube site:

He doesn’t like to rewatch his old videos — he said the experience can feel “miserable” — but as the 10th anniversary approached, he found that his several-thousand-video archive was an interesting way to chart time.

“I’ve moved maybe four or five times since it started,” he said. “I was married when it started but we have a baby now. We’ve had different animals. Different life experiences have happened within that window of time, and looking back on all of this stuff and seeing every single day represented is kind of special, because there aren’t many instances in which that would be a thing.”

Regular viewers of his channel these days will likely find Johnson at his home in St. Paul, which is bright and at once deliberately decorated and creatively chaotic. A booklet titled “Music belongs to everyone” lies atop his few-month-old baby’s Social Security card, which recently arrived in the mail. Sheet music is piled on an olive-green record player whose color echoes a tall plant near the fireplace. Of all the dozen and a half or so instruments he plays, just the piano and the acoustic guitar reside in the living room.

From our archives (2011): St. Paul musician ends year of creating new song each day.

When he records YouTube videos — by himself, most days — he just lets the camera roll and doesn’t spend too much time overthinking his instrumentation or fussing over rehearsals. His covers tend to have a folksier, stripped-down vibe, and he leans into this off-the-cuff, unvarnished charm when he’s collaborating with other musicians on his videos, too.

“Sometimes, that spontaneity is what the song needs,” he said. “The times when somebody has wanted to rehearse a song — after we’re done, it’s like, we should’ve recorded that. That would’ve been it, and now we have to do it again. So it feels a little bit replicated.”

In all facets of his musical practice, it seems, Johnson does everything possible to avoid a sense of artifice or duplication. For his live gigs, not only does he switch up the songs he plays during every show, he said, but he also does not even make a pre-planned setlist.

“Whatever you’re feeling in the moment is what I do,” he said. “So it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’ve seen him once before, so I get it.’ Every show is different. I don’t want to be somebody who replicates the same thing over and over and over again.”

He also takes the opportunity during live shows to go into storytelling mode and share tales of the more than 250 musical icons he’s collaborated with thanks to the YouTube channel. The musician Donovan flew Johnson to his home in Ireland, where they spent nine days together. He has recorded videos with Roseanne Cash, Creed Bratton, and Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow of the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, among others. One high-profile collaborator, whom he declined to name, didn’t remember Johnson’s name but immediately recognized him as the “‘song a day’ guy.”

Johnson has plenty of other stories he saves for live gigs, too: When he and his wife bought their current home in St. Paul, they appeared on an episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters,” and Johnson wrote and performed an original song on the show. At a gala honoring Tony Bennett, Johnson got to chat with the legendary singer. From the hospital, right before his wife, Megan, gave birth to their daughter, the pair recorded a duet of that day’s song, “You Say,” by Dori Freeman.

A video from Johnson’s project:

Early in the song-a-day project, part of him suspected he might abandon it eventually, the way people often do with well-intentioned journals or blogs. But he didn’t. His project passed 1,000 songs, then 2,000, then 3,000. He compared the experience to running a marathon — “not that I’ve ever run one,” he added, chuckling. “I did a duathlon once, and that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’m not going to do that again!”

When he gears up to cover a song, Johnson said, he often connects more deeply with the lyrics than the music. He’s likely to do a more faithful adaptation of a song whose lyrics are personally evocative — and, conversely, a song with a less powerful meaning is one where he feels more room to play around with instruments and musical styles. And ironically, the covers he feels most apprehensive about often get more feedback and attention than the ones he uploads confidently, he said.

“I can’t find that balance, but that’s one of the great things about it,” he said. “By the time you’re done with it, you gotta do one again the next day. You don’t linger on any of them, really.”

This is especially true since his daughter was born this summer. The YouTube channel is still part of Johnson’s daily routine, but now, when he plays the piano in his living room, viewers might spot the vintage wooden baby cradle in the background.

“I have new-dad brain,” he said. “I’m living in every moment.”

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