'Hi, How Are You' Mural

Address 411 W 21st St

The "Hi, How Are You" mural on Guadalupe Street at 21st, painted by singer-songwriter Daniel Johnston in 1993, is one of Austin's most enduring cultural landmarks. The image — a simple green frog called Jeremiah the Innocent with outstretched arms — has become so associated with Austin's independent music culture that it appears on T-shirts, tote bags, and a thousand Instagram accounts.

Johnston, who died in 2019, was a central figure in the DIY/lo-fi music movement and had a devoted following that included Kurt Cobain. The mural is a few blocks from the UT campus on the "Drag" (Guadalupe Street), which is the student-oriented commercial strip along the west edge of campus. Kurt Cobain wore a "Hi, How Are You" T-shirt on MTV Unplugged in 1993, which made the image internationally recognisable.

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A story
Daniel Johnston painted the original mural on a door on Guadalupe Street in 1993 when the space was a record shop called Sound Exchange. Johnston, who suffered from severe bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, became a beloved underground figure through his homemade cassette tapes and crayon drawings, sold from a car in front of the store. When Sound Exchange closed, Austin fought to preserve the mural — it has been restored multiple times and is now protected as a city landmark.