‘Safe as Milk’ and The Beatles: Was the Captain Beefheart classic the band’s favourite album?
As much as one may venture into the history books, uproot archived interviews, and desperately claw at the infinite reels of Reddit, some nuggets of information appear lost to the sands of time. One such half-disclosed nugget is the suggestion that The Beatles were immensely fond of Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band’s debut album of 1967, Safe As Milk.
While the Fab Four never explicitly declared it as their favourite album, the presence of Safe as Milk bumper stickers in their midst has fueled conjecture about its potential influence. Two separate images, one of George Harrison and another of John Lennon, have surfaced online, igniting a flurry of discussions among fans and music enthusiasts.
Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to assume that The Beatles would have been aware of Captain Beefheart’s work. Both bands occupied prominent positions in the late 1960s psychedelic rock scene, and their paths may well have crossed in some capacity. While concrete evidence of their interactions remains elusive, the parallel trajectories of their careers support a case of mutual respect.
Captain Beefheart and The Beatles both underwent significant transformations throughout their respective musical journeys. Initially rooted in blues and soul, Beefheart later veered into avant-garde territory with his experimental approach. Similarly, The Beatles evolved from their early days as purveyors of straightforward pop and rock to pioneers of the psychedelic wave, later toppling the prog-rock wave’s first domino.
As the mastermind behind ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and ‘Revolution 9’, Lennon was the most creatively experimental of The Beatles and hence would have had the most affinity with Captain Beefheart. Beyond the Safe As Milk sticker behind Lennon in a late 1960s photograph, it has been confirmed that the late Beatle owned a copy of the album.
Mike Nesmith of The Monkees once recalled meeting Lennon at his home in his book Infinite Tuesday: An Autobiographical Riff. “When we arrived, John was in a kind of breakfast den next to the kitchen, examining the cover of the Safe as Milk LP from Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band,” he wrote. “I was surprised and happy to see the album because I had been at those sessions in LA and made a friend of Beefheart, an artist of extraordinary scope who wore a smock and a perfect diamond soul patch and whose real name was Don Van Vliet. One of the producers of the album, Bob Krasnow, had been a close friend as well, as well as my manager and record producer before I got the job on the Monkees TV show.”
“So for a moment at John and Cynthia’s house, it was as if John, Beef, Kras, and I were all friends in the same room,” he continued. “I was sure Bob and Don would be very happy to know John was aware of the record – and was maybe even a fan of it. Maybe he could even be part of our band of avant-garde LA artists. Don had played an electric flour sifter on the record: possibly the next big rock-and-roll instrument.”
Nesmith was pleased to see that Lennon was an early owner of Beefheart’s debut album, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was a fan. “I asked John if he liked the album, and he said he hadn’t heard it. He had just received it unsolicited in the mail, was wondering what it was, and curious about why it was there. I was a little deflated. It was the fastest breakup of any band I had been in,” he quipped, dejected.
It appears that the bumper stickers, as seen in photographs of Lennon and Harrison, were included in US copies of the Safe as Milk record. It can be derived, therefore, that Lennon listened to the album after Nesmith’s visit and displayed the sticker on a cupboard in his house. Likewise, Harrison either purchased or received the album before pasting the sticker on a door and posing for this seemingly reverent photograph.
I’m afraid the connection between Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk and The Beatles remains shrouded in mystery and speculation. Despite a lack of concrete evidence, these two photographs of Lennon and Harrison suggest that both were, at the very least, amused by the album’s title. Perhaps if Lennon truly adored the album, he would have placed the bumper sticker on his famous psychedelic Rolls-Royce Phantom V.
Listen to ‘I’m Glad’ from Captain Beefheart’s Safe as Milk below.
