Elton John - ‘Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy’: the LP as autobiography
Welcome to the classic album Glimpse by Ian Sharp of ‘LP’
Hello! My apologies for the lurgy-related delay.
I’m now referring to this (usually on a Monday) post as a Glimpse; the Friday playlist continues to be called Gems, and the ten times per year-long read is an Immersion. I have a new ‘About’ page going live soon, too.
Anyway, it’s time for ‘Captain Fantastic’, via a diversion about LPs as artworks beyond the music they contain.
Listen to ‘Captain Fantastic’ now by clicking/touching the poster art below:
In 1975 I was an avid reader of the great music weekly New Musical Express (NME), often augmented by Sounds and, sometimes, Melody Maker. Collectively, they were known as the inkies,1 as were my hands after reading them.
A dry news item in the NME caught my eye; it simply gave the title of Elton John’s forthcoming album, and explained the package: a gatefold sleeve, a poster, two glossy booklets and - oh yeah - a record, and that it would retail for the “special price of £3.25”. This was when new LPs retailed for around a pound less. The following week’s reader’s letters revealed this lavish packaging price increase as a major scandal: “Just let us have the music”.
For a sense of scale, £3.25 in 1975 equates to about £40.30 in 2023.2 ‘Captain Fantastic’ is still available on vinyl, remastered and with all the bits and pieces from the original package, for £34.99 - roughly in line with the general cost of new records (the equivalent CD is £6.99 now, less than the tenner a full-price CD cost when they were first issued).
Okay, so what? Well, apart from giving the lie to the idea that records are horrendously overpriced now, perhaps ‘Captain Fantastic’ was overpriced then.
Nearly 50 years ago, the idea of charging extra for elaborate packaging was in its infancy. Either the lavish artwork came out of the artist’s royalties, or didn’t happen because the record company said “no”. One of the arguments in favour of records being ‘better’ - aside from audio quality - is the possibilities offered by a square foot of blank space on the sleeve, and more if the sleeve was a gatefold.3 Yet, still, everything was focused on the music. The physical art was an interesting extra.
This is where times have changed. Although not the only example, the most recent case of charging for the art and chucking in some music has been announced: the ‘special presentation’ of ‘Hounds of Love’ by Kate Bush.
Are you sitting down? The lowest price ‘special presentation’ is £138.00. Or you can buy - seriously - ‘Hounds of Love’ split across two one-sided records for £285.00. There’s a boxed set if you want the lot, for £500.00. These are being sold as artworks (obviously, it’s still possible to buy a ‘normal’ record or stream the album). I’m sure these presentations will be lovely to have for the right kind of Kate Bush collector.4 I’m still working out my feelings towards this development, though. What are yours?
Anyway, ‘Captain Fantastic’
The thing is, the £3.25 edition of ‘Captain Fantastic’ (the only available edition on release) was an early attempt to create an entire artistic package. It was still a record to be played (although there must have been some far-sighted people who never opened the sealed package as an investment).
How times change is one of the themes of ‘Captain Fantastic’. At least the package was in support of the story.
In the previous six years, stretching back to the start of his career, Elton John had released eight albums, writing songs in collaboration with lyricist Bernie Taupin. John’s status had changed from playing the piano with Long John Baldrey in Bluesology to becoming an unlikely-looking rock god and glam rocker in the early 70s, wearing ever-more elaborate stage costumes to compensate for the fact he was stuck behind a piano for most of his show.
He’d had a string of hit singles (‘Rocket Man’, ‘Candle in the Wind’, and ‘Crocodile Rock’ by this point, to name just three) and, as you’ll know if you’ve seen the film ‘Rocketman’ or read John’s book ‘Me’ (aff), he already had quite a story to tell.
In the seventies, an autobiographical album was a brave move. There was a spate of songs about how tough it was being on the road, stuck eating room service and drinking from the minibar in a luxury hotel room, and a whole LP of that would not find much of an audience - other rock stars, perhaps? At least that sort of writing opened the way for punk in the UK.
‘Captain Fantastic’ isn’t, of course, that sort of writing.
John and Taupin’s unusual way of working - Taupin writing the lyrics and sending them to John, who wrote the melody and arranged the song - always made for more interesting lyrical content than might be found on the average hit single, or even as a deep album cut. If anyone could nail an autobiographical album, it was them. And they did, boy did they.
Elton John was no overnight success. The struggle was real and is honestly documented here. Across wide-ranging musical styles - the rock of ‘(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket’, gorgeous ballads such as ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’ (included in last week’s ‘Gems #8’, and the only single from the album), even an early run at Philly soul (the amazing ‘Tell Me When the Whistle Blows’), Elton and the band tell it how it was.
So what might have been a time-marking look back before moving on with the next phase of his career became one of Elton John’s best albums. We can identify with his story, even while knowing he led a life we humble record buyers could only dream about (not least because we didn’t know half of it).
Some reissued versions of the album include John’s ‘Captain Fantastic’ Wembley Stadium concert. It’s always brave to play new material, especially in a massive set-piece gig where the audience would only partly be committed fans. To play the whole of your new album, before it was released, was - well, diplomats would say the move was ‘courageous’. There was a mixed reception.
The story continued with ‘The Captain and the Kid’ in 2006, and with Elton John’s book and film, Elton’s is one of the most explored personal histories in rock.
Mainly, though, ‘Captain Fantastic’ is an LP full of deeply enjoyable songs. It flows like a great album in its own right, and the lyrical story can be taken or left according to taste.
This link is to an archive of rock music journalism, including many of the leading lights from NME, Melody Maker and Sounds. It’s what the internet was made for.
https://iamkate.com/data/uk-inflation/ accessed 07/11/2023
I was convinced ‘Sgt. Pepper’ was a double album for a while, because I’d only seen the gatefold sleeve, and didn’t know single LPs sometimes grew notions about their station.
If an LP is never played, does the music in the grooves exist?
To release Madman, Honky Chateau, Don’t Shoot Me, Yellow Brick Road, Caribou, and this LP in the span of 4 calendar years ... incredible stuff
In answer to your #4, yes.