# The Strange Music of Captain Beefheart



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Aside from a few songs on Trout Mask Replica, I feel his next album is way better, and way more fully realized. What's yer favourite album?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Re-purchased the CD recently but haven't been listening to it. Waiting to get back on a rock n roll kick. Never really was a big Trout Mask fan. I like the '72 albums, Shiny Beast, and Ice Cream For Crow.


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I'm not much of an album guy. I just love most of his music, almost anything.


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2018)

I first bought Troutmask back in '71 when I was entering my teens and going for all-out rebellion. I was doing copious amounts of psychotropics and listening to all the underground. subversive music I could find. Someone suggested Beefheart so I bought Troustmask because it was produced by Zappa. I didn't know if the guy was making anti-music or if this was just the way he rolled. Some of it sounded like some guy out in the desert with a cassette recorder singing whatever came into his mind after the apocalypse. Titles as "The Dust Blows Forward and the Dust Blows Back" made me think of nuclear detonations. "Dachau Blues" referenced "the burnin's back in World War Three" and so I thought that Beefheart was showing us music after nuclear war as we gather in caves to escape the bitter winter because all the dust has blotted out the sun.

"Myhumangetsme blues" was like some kind of Mad Max religious service:

I saw you baby, dancin' in your x-ray gingham dress
I knew you were under duress
I knew you were under your dress

Just keep comin' Jesus, you're the best dressed
You look dandy in the sky but you don't scare me
'Cause I got you here in my eye

In this lifetime
You got my-human-gets-me blues

With your jaw hangin' slack and your hair's curlin'
Like an ole navy fork stickin' in the sunset
The way you were dancin' I knew you'd never come back
You were strainin' to keep your old black cracked patent shoes

In this lifetime
You got my-human-gets-me blues

Well the way you'd been ol' lady, I could see the fear in your windows
Under your furry crawlin' brow, a silver bow
Rings up in inches
You were afraid you'd be the devil's red wife

But it's alright, God dug your dance
And would have you young and in his harem
Dress you the way he wants 'cause he never had a doll
'Cause everybody made him a boy
And God didn't think to ask his preference

You can bring yer dress and your favorite dog
And your husband's cane
And your old spotted hog

'Cause in this lifetime
You got my-human-gets-me blues

***

I would picture myself standing on some deserted plateau looking out over desert and it was this way all over the world. It's easy when you're on hallucinogenics. And I knew whatever world I came from to get there, I knew I was never going back. The only way was forward. From now on it was the Captain and Me.


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