Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy - History

History

Written, according to lyricist Bernie Taupin, in chronological order, Captain Fantastic is a concept album that gives an autobiographical glimpse at the struggles John (Captain Fantastic) and Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) had in the early years of their musical careers in London (from 1967 to 1969). The lyrics and accompanying photo booklet are infused with a specific sense of place and time that would otherwise be rare in John's music. John composed the music on a cruise ship voyage to the U.S.

"Someone Saved My Life Tonight", the only single released from the album (and a number 4 hit on the U.S. Pop Singles chart), is a semi-autobiographical story about John's disastrous engagement to Linda Woodrow, and his related 1969 suicide attempt. The "Someone" refers to Long John Baldry, who convinced him to break off the engagement rather than ruin his music career for an unhappy marriage. It was viewed by Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau as the best track on the album: "As long as Elton John can bring forth one performance per album on the order of 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight', the chance remains that he will become something more than the great entertainer he already is and go on to make a lasting contribution to rock."

In a 2006 interview with Cameron Crowe, Elton said, "I've always thought that Captain Fantastic was probably my finest album because it wasn't commercial in any way. We did have songs such as 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' which is one of the best songs that Bernie and I have ever written together, but whether a song like that could be a single these days, since it's six minutes long, is questionable. Captain Fantastic was written from start to finish in running order, as a kind of story about coming to terms with failure—or trying desperately not to be one. We lived that story."

Elton, Bernie and the band laboured harder and longer on the album than perhaps any previous record they'd ever done to that point. As opposed to the rather quick, almost factory-like process of writing and recording an album in a matter of a few days or at most a couple of weeks (as with "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"), the team spent the better part of a month off the road at Caribou Ranch Studios working on the recordings. Producer Gus Dudgeon was apparently also very satisfied with the results. The album's producer was quoted in Elizabeth Rosenthal's "His Song," an exhaustive detailed accounting of nearly all John's recorded work, as saying he thought "Captain Fantastic" was the best the band and Elton had ever played, lauded their vocal work, and soundly praised Elton and Bernie's songwriting. "There's not one song on it that's less than incredible," Dudgeon said.

In 1976, Bally Manufacturing released a Pinball machine for arcades, titled Capt. Fantastic. Elton is featured on the backglass, in his character from the movie Tommy, as the pinball wizard. It is considered an iconic pinball machine by most enthusiasts as far as artwork. It was also the most produced electromechanical pinball machine.

While John was known for his rather elaborate or lavish packaging of his albums, Captain Fantastic may well have topped all previous releases. The original LP included a "Lyrics" booklet, curiously beginning with a lyric for "Dogs In The Kitchen" that was never completed and not on the album's lineup, and another booklet called "Scraps," which collected snippets of reviews, diary entries and other personal memorabilia of John and Taupin during the years chronicled on the album. It also contained a poster of the album's cover. (These were all reproduced, in smaller versions, for the 2005 Deluxe Edition CD.) Limited edition copies were also pressed on brown vinyl.

The 2006 album The Captain & the Kid is the sequel, and continues the autobiography where Captain Fantastic leaves off.