RIP Jon Daker

If you’re new to the Internet, you may not know the absolute GEM that is Jon Daker.

For everyone else, this may be a walk down memory lane.

This is NOT the type of thing we would normally cover here, but it’s my site and I get to do what I want with it so for the next few minutes we’re going to talk about a legend…

A friend of mine (shoutout Mark!) just sent me this video again as well as news of Jon’s passing in 2022, and after jumping back in to watch his famous video again, I felt I had to cover it here.

This two minute video has literally been described as “the greatest video in the history of the world”. That’s not my opinion, that’s the opinion of Jonathan Aigner from a post on Patheos that I will share with you in just a minute. But I don’t disagree with it.

One of the earliest “viral videos” I ever remember watching on the Internet and sharing with others is this incredible video of Jon Daker singing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” paired with “That’s Amore”.

He misses more than half the words, but in the process became beloved by millions.

From Patheos, Aigner gives a perfect introduction and background in case you’re not familiar with what I’m about to show you:

Jon Graham Daker, son, brother, faithful Christian, and accidental internet star, reportedly passed away yesterday, February 20, 2022, in Peoria, Illinois. Born in 1939, he was 82 years old.

For most of you, he needs no introduction. If you’re new to the internet, let me tell you how the world came to know Jon Daker.

Peoria resident Reva Singley Cooper Unsicker taught voice, piano, and organ lessons for some six decades until her death in 1995 at the age of 80. For most of those years, her studio recitals were held in the sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church in Peoria where she attended.

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I have never found out how this happened, but at some point in the 80s she was offered the chance to broadcast her recitals on local public access TV station. Reva jumped at the chance, which according to one source, elicited a collective sigh of relief among the church staff, as Reva was, shall we say, a bit particular about these recitals.

Nobody was ever supposed to see them again, but God in His mercy had other ideas. While a few brief clips from others remain, much of one 1990 recital is preserved on YouTube.

On Easter Sunday 2009, my life changed completely when my friend Todd shared the Jon Daker video on Facebook. (He is usually credited as “John,” but there was no “h” in his first name, perhaps to distinguish him from his paternal grandfather, John Graham Daker.)

I’ve laughed, cried, and cringed through many, many viewings since that wonderful, wonderful day. I’ve since introduced Mr. Daker to everyone I love, or even tolerate. It is, in my opinion, the greatest video in the history of the world. The Jon Daker video is enough to justify the existence of the internet. Everything about it is classic. Reva’s nearly incoherant introduction, her expeditious accompanying, Jon’s pleasant voice and his ability to maintain his composure, and the brilliant mashup of the Wesley hymn (very popular nowadays) “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” with “That’s Amore.” If you haven’t seen it before, here it is. Stay tuned through the brief clip of Michelle Caseyaneye at the beginning.

And now, please enjoy:

Again from Patheos, Aigner explains that while some people were laughing AT Jon, millions more loved the fact that a guy with not a lot of talent still wanted to participate in the church choir — and he should be allowed to do so!

There were others in the lineup, George Stanton, Margie Hicks, Bob Spencer, Pearl Gross, and their videos are internet gold in their own right. But Jon was the star that day, and forevermore, world without end, amen.

Years ago, I wrote a post about the beauty of the church choir. I included the Daker video in one of my points as an example of the good folks who make up these ensembles. My point was basically that Mr. Daker and any of his friends would be welcome in my choir any day of the week. I was shocked to receive a comment from one of the pastors at the First United Methodist Church in Peoria, Illinois, which Jon, Reva, and many of the others attended.

While the pastor used his best manners, he essentially told me that he was sick and tired of people like me sharing this video in an attempt to humiliate and embarrass Jon, and that my sharing the video in my post was in bad taste. I responded with my earnest disagreement.

You see, in a world plagued by sin and evil, in which churches increasingly have no room for church musicians without commercial appeal, Jon Daker represents hope, joy, and faith. Here is a regular guy who has managed to lift the spirits of millions thanks to his love of singing and a willingness to crash and burn with dignity.

And while there were some that made fun of him, a cult following of fans emerged, including some Peoria locals who befriended him and paid him visits in the publicly-funded assisted living home where he lived after his parents and siblings passed away. One in particular, a woman named Heather, stayed with him and advocated for him until the end. Not only did Heather love and care for this man with whom she shared no relation, but through social media she allowed those of us who already loved the legend of John Daker to get a glimpse at the real Jon Daker. And the stories that emerged from these visits painted a picture of a kind, gentle man who loved Jesus and faithfully served his church.

For decades, the legend of Jon Daker (and the nearly incoherent Reva Singley Cooper Unsicker) has taken on a life of its own, with friends showing the video to other friends, parents now showing it to children and so on.

It’s even led to people recreating the famous video down to every last detail:

Not the best singer…

He didn’t even know more than 50% of the words to either song….

But Jon Daker was truly loved by millions.

And before I close this article, I want to end with a beautiful and insightful eulogy written by JordanMPoss:

I learned yesterday that a genuine internet legend died this week, aged 82. His name was Jon Daker.

Jon Daker was the accidental star of one of the first real viral videos, a two-minute public access TV segment in which he sang in a recital organized by an elderly piano teacher at his church. I discovered this video in college, in the days before YouTube, embedded with other segments from the same broadcast on an already ancient website that I believe is now defunct. There were probably about fifteen or twenty minutes total preserved from that recital, including some standup comedy, choral numbers, and other soloists, and while many of these were funny or awkward, Daker’s was far and away the funniest of them all—one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

It’s an accidental comedy masterpiece, growing continuously funnier from start to finish. Daker awkwardly introduces himself, he misses his first cue and rushes to catch up, he visibly forgets the lyrics to his second number, he tries to recover with a little gesture and movement at the mic only to end up humming his way to the final lines of the song, and all the while Mrs Unsicker, the piano teacher, sits playing away at her upright piano like a machine. Daker’s portion of the show is only a minute and a half long, but he wraps those ninety seconds up with an iron-jawed stoicism and an obvious sense of relief.

I’ve watched this clip every so often for close to twenty years, and it never, ever stops being funny.

But why? Part of it is the obvious—it’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, he forgets the words, he clearly doesn’t know what to do with his face. His utterly rigid body language screams his keen, moment by moment awareness of how badly it’s going, and that with the pianist pounding through his two songs like an automaton heedless of his calamity there is no stopping. Then there are subtler things—the perfect comedy timing of his name, misspelled, popping up onscreen after his introduction and in perfect time with Mrs Unsicker’s first chord; or the truly daft pairing of Charles Wesley with Dean Martin. The more you watch it the more you see.

But for me, the laughter—and I laugh till I cry—is also a laugh of recognition. It’s sympathetic, even affectionate. I see in Daker’s ninety seconds of gawping, humming, halting Sprechgesang my own worst case scenario for public performance. I flop sweat for him as he nears the end of his set. It’s the laughter you share with your buddy who completely blew his lines in the Christmas cantata, grateful it wasn’t you but glad you can laugh him through the embarrassment. Because in that situation Daker is me, right down to the eyebrows.

That is, he would be me—if I had the guts and humility to volunteer for a solo on television, accompanied by a lady from my church.

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In my classes I have often lamented to my students that for all the pop music on the radio and store PA systems, we actually live in a less musical world than our ancestors, who had songs for everything and celebrated, mourned, worshiped, mocked, marched into battle, or simply began their daily chores by bursting into song. Think of the last time you heard someone singing in public for no apparent reason, I tell them, and consider how odd you almost certainly found it. That was the norm even within living memory. Now, unless one has the polish of a professional (and digitally assisted) singer, you’ll be hooted into silence.

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But there’s a deeper point here, and an explicitly religious one. Aigner links to an earlier post of his in praise of church choirs, in which he invoked Daker with both obvious affection and in service of a great point:

There’s no way John would make it onto any praise team anywhere. He’s not cool enough, young enough, or stylish enough, and his tendency toward performance anxiety doesn’t help, either. But, you know what? John obviously loves to sing, and I’m guessing his service in the Chancel Choir at First United Methodist Church is diligent and earnest. We already know he can match pitch (and sing in diverse styles), and having sought out the services of Mrs. Reva Cooper Unsicker, he must be quite teachable. For those qualities, he would be more than welcome in most church choirs. He could sing in my choir any day, although I probably wouldn’t let him do “Amora” too, okay?

Seriously, there seems to be a trend in contemporary worship culture that says unless you look a certain way, dress a certain way, have the right personality, fit into the targeted age bracket, or meet some other predetermined “coolness” factor, you cannot lead in corporate worship. This is wrong. Worship leadership should resemble the radical diversity of Christ’s Kingdom, and a choir facilitates this quite well.

And that, in its turn, brought to mind CS Lewis and Uncle Screwtape. In Letter 2 of The Screwtape Letters, Lewis’s elder devil mentors his nephew, a tempter in training, with reflections on how to distract his “patient,” the human man subject to temptation, with the embarrassing reality of church:

When he [the patient] goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous.

The one-word name for this temptation, of course, is pride. To which I have to say, Mea culpa—I’ve been guilty of precisely what Screwtape describes here. But this beautiful imperfection, this “radical diversity” that Aigner describes, is the real and joyous face of the church, and I’m willing to bet, based on the way Jon Daker put himself out there, willingly entering into a situation I certainly never would for the sake of the people he knew best, that pride did not enter into his character much. He’s a man we do well not to laugh at, but with.

The world needs more Jon Dakers, and not just because of the laughs. As Aigner fittingly concludes in his piece, “may his memory outlast the internet.” RIP.