The Captain Beefheart video that was banned by MTV for being “too weird”
The late Captain Beefheart was an enigma unlike any other artist on the planet. He was a pioneer who played by his own rules, and being a staple on MTV was never a priority for Beefheart. However, despite that, they still felt the need to officially ban one of his videos for being “too weird”.
Beefheart is one of the ultimate cult figures in music history. Even if you’re unfamiliar with his work, there’s a strong likelihood he’s impacted one of your favourite musicians. For example, his album Trout Mask Replica changed the life of John Lydon and allowed him to be confident in unconventionally making music.
Lydon told Pitchfork about the record: “There’s just so much on this: It’s a double album and by the time you finish it—if you can finish it—you can’t remember what you heard at the beginning. I liked that. It was anti-music in the most interesting and insane way, like kids learning to play violin—which I was going through at the time. So all the bum notes I was being told off for by the teachers were finally being released by well-known artists. That was my confirmation. From then on, there was room for everything.”
Beefheart wore his imperfections on his sleeve, and Lydon found solace in the fact that the American tore up the rulebook. It wasn’t just his music which was absurd; everything from his music videos to his bizarre appearance on David Letterman were frankly preposterous but also awe-inspiring.
For the ‘Ice Cream For Crow’ video, Beefheart and his band decamped to the desert at a tremendous financial cost. However, he had a vision that he wanted to see through, and Beefheart did so with aplomb, but, unfortunately, the major television company had no interest in airing his creation. MTV have a history of this and also banned a video by Neil Young.
Thankfully, Letterman was fighting Beefheart’s corner and invited him to promote the track on his programme. The interview section was charming and confusing in equal measure. Still, it also allowed the musician to air his ‘For Ice Cream For Crow’ visuals to a national audience.
“I’d like to say, I really appreciate you showing this because, what is it, MTV? I don’t want my MTV if they don’t want my video,” he said in reference to the broadcaster’s ‘I want my MTV’ slogan. Letterman added, “It’s too bad, it’s their loss,” a sentiment Beefheart agreed on.
Unfortunately, the whole video isn’t available to watch on YouTube, but if you cut to 7:43 in the interview with Letterman, you can view a one-minute snippet of Beefheart & The Magic Band in the desert for ‘Ice Cream For Crow’. Additionally, years later, after its release, Beefheart had the last laugh over MTV when the video was accepted into the Museum of Modern Art.
