Rife with concept albums in the 1970s, Captain Fantastic is one of the most coherent, and it shows Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s creative relationship.
Elton John’s ninth studio album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, was a hotly anticipated item upon its release on 23 May 1975. So hot, in fact, that it was the first album ever to enter Billboard magazine’s Top 200 Albums chart at #1 the week of its release. It was a commercial and critical peak for John and lyricist Bernie Taupin, a songwriting partnership that remains strong a half-century later.
Fifty years on, Captain Fantastic is considered a classic, yet it still feels somewhat underrated. Maybe over the ensuing decades, this record has been lost in the shuffle of Elton John being the biggest pop cultural figure of 1975. Consider the timeline: in the year leading up to Captain Fantastic, John released his Greatest Hits, a commercial blockbuster, and released four songs (“The Bitch Is Back”, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, “Philadelphia Freedom”, and “Pinball Wizard”) that would appear on Greatest Hits Vol II a few years later.
Also, John collaborated on songs released by John Lennon (“Whatever Gets You Through the Night”) and Ringo Starr (“Snookeroo”). Lennon appeared for a three-song set as a special guest at John’s Madison Square Garden concert on Thanksgiving night, 1974 (Lennon’s last concert appearance). Elton John appeared in the movie adaptation of the Who‘s Tommy, playing the Pinball Wizard. In short, the arrival of Captain Fantastic “from the end of the world to your town” (as Taupin notes in the title track) was a pop culture phenomenon, smack dab in the middle of the wild and weird 1970s.
Trust me, I was there. Captain Fantastic was released one week before my tenth birthday. An aunt gifted it to me that very week, and I spent the summer of 1975 immersed in the album. I have been listening ever since. It’s no exaggeration to say that Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, with its autobiographical storyline and elaborate packaging, changed the way I experienced pop music, and I am not the only music lover who can make that claim about this record.
A Coherent Concept
In an era rife with concept albums, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is one of the most coherent. The ten songs describe the creative and personal relationship between Elton John and Bernie Taupin, from the moment they met as young men in 1967 to just before the success of “Your Song” and the debut Elton John album in 1970.
This autobiographical territory has since been explored in memoirs by both John (2019’s Me) and Taupin (2023’s Scattershot), as well as in the 2019 musical fantasy biopic Rocketman. However, it was on Captain Fantastic that the most successful songwriting duo of the 1970s first revealed their origin story.
Throughout Captain Fantastic, we encounter the pair as they meet each other in the opening title track. John and Taupin discover the seamy side of the music industry in late 1960s London (“Tower of Babel” and “Bitter Fingers”). Taupin, now living with John in London, becomes homesick (“Tell Me When the Whistle Blows”) and John, depressed by an ill-conceived engagement, considers ending his life (“Someone Saved My Life Tonight”).
The pair struggle to make ends meet in “(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket”) and endure existential crises in late-night diners (“Better Off Dead”). Finally, a creative breakthrough (“Writing”) leads John and Taupin to discover the depth of their friendship and creative partnership (“We All Fall in Love Sometimes”) and places them on the brink of worldwide success (“Curtains”).
The sumptuous presentation of the artifact itself made it easy to become enveloped in the tale Taupin was weaving, even if you didn’t quite get all the details right away. Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy arrived in a gatefold package that included separate lyric and scrapbook pages, as well as a poster of the Hieronymus Bosch-inspired cover art, credited to Alan Aldridge and Harry Willock.
The Songs
All hype and packaging aside, at the heart of Captain Fantastic are the ten most cohesive songs that Elton John and Bernie Taupin have written together. Perhaps because only one track received extensive radio play (the sole single, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”), the songs on Captain Fantastic still sound fresh.
In the liner notes to the 1990 Elton John box set, to be continued…, Taupin calls Captain Fantastic “probably the finest album we made” and notes that he wrote the songs in chronological order (as they ultimately appeared on the album). Taupin also says: “The story of the album takes place, autobiographically, from the time that we met to the time that we recorded the Empty Sky album. So it’s about a really short period of time, but I think it was when were really discovering our craft and discovering each other and how we got along.”
John matched Taupin’s evocative lyrics with a dazzling array of tunes. As John recounts in Me, he composed the songs during lunchtime sessions in the music room on the SS France, where he was accompanying Cynthia and Julian Lennon as they journeyed across the Atlantic to New York City to visit Julian’s dad.
There are no obvious hits like “Crocodile Rock” on Captain Fantastic, but the music ranges from the country-rock title track to a bluesy take on Philly soul with “Tell Me When the Whistle Blows”. Meanwhile, “(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket” is one of the most convincing hard rockers in John’s discography.
The three ballads on Captain Fantastic are crucial to the album’s artistic triumph. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is the most familiar, rising to #4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, despite its length (6:45, even as a single) and subject matter. Fifty years later, it remains a stunning song, and was a concert highlight during Elton John’s farewell tour—I may have wept.
Lesser known are the two songs that close Captain Fantastic, “We All Fall in Love Sometimes” and “Curtains”. “We All Fall in Love Sometimes” is about just that, but the love in question isn’t limited to romantic love: it is about the love shared between platonic friends like John and Taupin. It’s also about falling in love with the creative process, as you discover it within you.
“Curtains” brings the story to a close, with Elton and Bernie having just written their future standard, “Your Song”. “Curtains” and the album close with the lyric that ties Captain Fantastic together, “And just like us / You must have had a once upon a time.” A long fade-out, featuring many “oh-oh-oh’s” and “lum-de-lums” ensues.
It would be unimaginable to discuss Captain Fantastic without acknowledging the playing of the group of musicians who had officially become known as the Elton John Band. Along with John on piano and other keyboards (harpsichords! Mellotrons!), the band was comprised of Dee Murray (bass, backing vocals), Davey Johnstone (guitars, backing vocals), Nigel Olsson (drums, backing vocals, and Ray Cooper (percussion).
The Elton John Band were in peak performance mode throughout Captain Fantastic, bringing the songs vibrantly to life.
Captain Fantastic: The Aftermath
Elton John didn’t stop moving after the release of Captain Fantastic. After letting go of Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, John reconfigured his band and headlined the Midsummer Music festival at London’s Wembley Stadium on 21 June 1975.
In their respective memoirs, both John and Taupin note with regret that John’s decision to play the entire Captain Fantastic album for a festival crowd at the end of a long day resulted in thousands of fans heading for the exit before the show was over. Listeners can decide for themselves whether the whole album performance was worthwhile, as it was included in the 30th anniversary reissue of the record.
Later that summer, John convened the new band to record Rock of the Westies, which was released by the end of the year and again topped the charts at #1 in its first week. However, that kind of momentum couldn’t last, and it didn’t.
Elton John’s career and life took many twists and turns after Captain Fantastic, many of which are detailed in The Captain and the Kid. An artistic, if not commercial success, this 2006 album tells the rest of the story. The Captain and the Kid is a considerably more modest affair than its predecessor, but like every album Elton John has recorded in the 21st century, it’s well worth hearing. “Will we still be writing in approaching years,” Bernie wrote, and Elton sang, in 1975. Indeed, they have been.
These days, Elton John seems to prefer keeping things in the present tense, championing young artists across many genres, and releasing Who Believes in Angels? an acclaimed, recent collaboration with singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. On 23 May, John did post the following on his social media: “On this day, 50 years ago, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy was released! An autobiographical album telling the story of how Bernie and I met and strived for success in the late ’60s. It made history as the first album ever to debut at No. 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart and stayed there for seven weeks… It’s one of the albums I’m proudest of.”
On behalf of those of us who fell in love with Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy in the summer of 1975, and those who might have fallen in love with it later, I’d like to thank Elton John and Bernie Taupin for soundtracking our own “once upon a time”.