Five Easy Masterpieces: an introduction to Captain Beefheart
There comes a point in the education of any young music fan where they have to embrace a little madness. The sort that goes far beyond what you were told was psychedelic in The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper or the conceptual in Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. The sort that embraces the limitless expanse of abstract art and the idea that music, at its loosest, can just be a collection of noises. Enter, Captain Beefheart.
His music can be viewed as somewhat of a deepening pool, however. It’s not headfirst in the big, deep blue, where you are left fending for your life without a life jacket. There is a nice set of Roman steps to use through his 1967 record Safe As Milk, which blends the familiar sounds of raw delta blues with the tinges of psychedelic pop that were rumbling in the late 1960s.
Through this lens, Captain Beefheart, AKA Don Van Vliet, began to slowly develop the idea of drip-feeding his abstract ideas into song. Come 1969 and the heyday of pop culture’s liberalism, Beefheart snatched the opportunity to be esoteric with both hands. Trout Mask Replica pushed the boundaries of conventional music listening, blending free jazz with art rock and letting his surrealist vocal style rein down on the tracks with limitless freedom.
It was an itch that needed scratching, because come the mid-1970s, when he returned to the conventional worlds of songwriting, Beefheart showcased his ability to arrange myriad ideas. Life, loss and romance were all woven into sonic ideas that put melody first and rightly showcased him as one of music’s most ambitious idea men, capable of writing a killer track that sounded like no other.
If you’re new here and just want to get started, allow these five songs to take you on a whistle-stop tour through the wonderful world of Captain Beefheart.
Five essential Captain Beefheart singles:
‘Observatory Crest’
It wasn’t all just surrealism and genre fusion that made Captain Beefheart so good. As the psychedelic 1960s folded into the following decade, Beefheart learned how to pivot his skills and prove he knew how to write a deeply melodic love song and ‘Observatory Crest’ was a mighty fine example of that.
The guitar playing is elegant yet detailed, allowing a virtuosic profile to bleed through the arrangement while not blocking the wider intent of the song. Ultimately, it shows his ability to play both sides as a songwriter, with all the instruments arranged in a similar way, creating a warm textural atmosphere that still has a tinge of psychedelia, which opens up room for surrealism in the lyric writing.
‘Zig-Zag Wanderer’
Being introduced to a band for the very first time is always a special moment, and for me, the gateway into Captain Beefheart’s greatness was this song. When a friend told me I simply had to listen to it, before sounding out the building intro and subsequent “zig-zag” whisper, I was left unsure. But then I played it, and all context was realised.
The riff hangs over the top of the whole song, taking most of your focus, but as each verse unveils itself, the intrigue of the bass line becomes more prominent. It wobbles and hypnotises underneath, eluding any sense of understanding from you. It’s so psychedelic that you wonder how it was written, only to swiftly find out it was the three performances of Jerry Handley, Ry Cooder, and Gary Marker stitched together.
‘Moonlight On Vermont’
This is where free jazz meets blues without any hesitation. Trout Mask Replica saw Beefheart’s wild and rampant ideas, put into the crystallised lens of virtuoso Frank Zappa, whereby sounds could be explored with limitless ambition. It was an unashamed window in the wild world of Beefheart, and ‘Moonlight On Vermont’ showcases that.
Because if you want to delve deeper into the full discography of Beefheart, you have to be willing to accept some madness. But with Zappa’s precision, this song shows that there was a through line of coherence that existed when they got it right. There were vignettes of instrumental brilliance that existed in this unrelenting monster of a song, be it the characterful vocals or razor-sharp guitars, and showcased the idea that a good song can almost be akin to a good painting.
‘Electricity’
Jack White’s description of Captain Beefheart as “avant-garde in an unpretentious way” is best showcased on his 1967 album Safe As Milk. It has such a unique sonic profile to it that blends the familiarity of its time and builds on blues conventions laid out in the decade, but with a sense of exciting surrealism that made it almost elusive.
He showcases that skill with freedom on ‘Electricity’. There’s nothing wild in the use of instruments, with a relatively basic structure sitting behind Beefheart’s vocals. But the sonic arrangement adheres to no rules, ebbing and flowing through the ideas of their leader’s mind with exciting unpredictability. Then there are Van Vliet’s vocals, which are so sinister they almost sound cartoon-like. But because they exist in Beefheart’s self-curated world, they work perfectly and make this song psychedelically invigorating as opposed to confused.
‘Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles’
Captain Beefheart’s ability to make the minimal sound deeply textural is exemplified no better than on this song. The almost repetitive melody, driven by the tinges of a mandolin and the deep underlying groove that exists beneath, all hypnotise the listener into a state of intense concentration while being relatively rudimentary.
The natural musicality of the song is then boosted by Beefheart’s uncharacteristic vulnerability. The lyrics are plain to see and put Beefheart into a state of longing, fit for the bluesy undertone of this song. It’s a very simple idea executed to perfection, and brimming with emotion that reminds listeners that Beefheart wasn’t just one of the great songwriters, but a unique and captivating vocalist.
