The Captain and the Kid: The Real “Rocketman”
By Steven P. Wheeler
In 2005, on the 30th anniversary of their first autobiographical album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John and Bernie Taupin decided to finish their story with the writing of The Captain And The Kid, which was released in 2006. This brilliant album is without a doubt a musical love letter from the self-described Tin Pan Alley Twins to their longtime fans. It was the third in their “draw-a-line-in-the-sand” trilogy following the solid, but over-hyped Songs From The West Coast and the equally strong but over-criticized Peachtree Road.
It’s funny that Elton would ever be upset over the commercial reaction—or lack thereof—to this highly personal album. Then again, it’s no more silly and ridiculous as Elton’s many bitchy rants over the years; especially in the wake of Bernie’s suggestion and Elton’s then-commitment to not worry about commercial success anymore, but to make albums that they, themselves, were proud of.
It’s obvious and true that this is simply not an album for the masses or even for many of the newer generation of Elton fans, who weren’t there in the beginning of the John/Taupin saga, as they would have little or no reference points to Taupin’s excellent lyrics contained here (which are FILLED with winks and nods that only longtime fans would recognize). And also because this particular segment of their fan base had grown up with the musical duo and can directly relate to the then-current events that are littered throughout (Nixon-era America, the hedonistic openness of cocaine, drink and sex during the Seventies and Eighties, the initial AIDS scare, and so much more).
Even more important is how a new younger audience who may have jumped on the EJ train in the Eighties or after The Lion King success could ever truly relate to the experiences and sentiments that only those with 40+ years of life can truly understand so deeply and feel so impactfully.
At its heart, The Captain And The Kid is a mature reflection of a time that will never come again. It’s a musical mirror of life for those whose own lives have been filled with touchdowns, failures, rejections and redemptions; and whose personal paths were spent speeding down open highways in their youth before realizing that these same roads are littered with detours, dead-ends, accidents, and the aftermath of personal tragedy.
Eventually, you can pine for past days in hopes of regaining something you think you’ve lost, or, as Bernie so brilliantly notes in the epic title track: “You can’t go back, and if you try, you fail.” Truer words have never been written for those of a certain age.
What follows is an overload of trivial information, but for the few who haven’t heard this album (and hopefully some of you who have), you’ll find some of this information interesting enough to listen to it all with fresh ears and a fresh perspective……..
Like the songs from its predecessor, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, these story-songs are indeed in chronological order and there are some beautiful moments, subtle tributes and references for longtime John/Taupin fans to find.
As most fans know, the original autobiographical album in 1975, Captain Fantastic, covered only a brief two-year period in the lives of Elton John and Bernie Taupin; from their initial meeting in 1967 through their staff songwriting failures right up to their recording of Empty Sky in 1969. What many don’t remember or never understood is that the entire Captain Fantastic album only touched on their lives BEFORE they achieved any success at all.
So, for the sequel—The Captain And The Kid—Bernie’s mission was to now cover 35 years (1970-2005) in a dozen or so songs. No easy feat, but he pulled it off masterfully; dropping in some wonderful imagery that takes those of us who were there right back to the beginning of the duo’s unparalleled journey. Here’s a track-by-track analysis for the nerds:
Postcards From Richard Nixon
Things kick right off with their first visit of the States in August of 1970 on the album’s opener. In fact, Bernie literally starts the tale with the songwriting duo (plus drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray) landing at Los Angeles International Airport and being greeted by a giant red London double-decker bus (with the huge banner on its side: “Elton John has arrived”), which would drive the jet-lagged English youth through the streets of Hollywood that they had always dreamed about.
Literally, they didn’t even have a taste of California air before they were thrust for the very first time into the machine of big-time rock & roll!
They put us on a big red bus / Twin spirits soaking up a dream
Fuel to feed the press machine / After years that were long and lean
Incidentally, the notorious “red bus” incident was the brainchild of Elton’s early publicist/unapologetic extrovert (and a good friend and professional colleague of mine) Norman Winter. Elton hated that first American publicity stunt (as you can somewhat see by his less-than-apparent smile for the camera below….that’s Reg Dwight, the bearded chap standing on your far left, next to a 20-year-old Bernie Taupin). Elton, of course, played along and Norman never made any apologies for the stunt. And who could blame him, after all the publicity he mustered to make that week’s Troubadour stint one of the most legendary concert stands in rock history!
Within days, these unknowns played their very first concerts in America at the Troubadour. A seismic event that resulted in Elton being proclaimed “Rock’s Next Superstar” by Robert Hilburn in the Los Angeles Times after that now-legendary concert stint in West Hollywood.
Or as Bernie wrote later in “Postcards,” the naïve Brits had trouble believing the hype themselves:
Neither of us understood the way things ticked in Hollywood…..And pretty soon we were “Where it’s at”……Or so the papers say
The Captain Fantastic album never had a chance to touch on this legendary turning point in Los Angeles, and so Bernie opens the sequel album by depicting how these shy young guys from England were literally overwhelmed by what they saw in the City Of Angels on that first visit: sunbathed beauties, a visit to Disneyland and just being in the land of one of Elton’s early heroes The Beach Boys, and quickly realized they were….. “finally on our way”
And the lyricist sums up that early period where the ideal marriage of youthful energy and sudden success are perfectly in sync, as in his metaphoric statement in this opening song’s final verse about this exploding fame and instantaneous future that was unveiled and tossed to these two musical brothers:
And for you and me that speeding car is how it’s going to be
I see no brakes / just open road / and lots of gasoline
Just Like Noah’s Ark
The ensuing success that grew bigger and bigGER AND BIGGER STILL over the next five years is illustrated right away in the album’s second track. Taupin’s decision to put these two musical peas-in-a-pod in a whimsical rock & roll vehicle dubbed Noah’s Ark is just a brilliant touch. They were a pair; they were in this together: two of them against the world.
We quickly see them forced to rub shoulders with sleazy record execs “chomping a big cigar” who were unknowingly insulting the still-in-the-closet piano pounder (“slapping backs and making cracks about the fags in the bar”), while cocaine-pushing radio deejays made all the usual Hollywood make-you-a-star promises (“you can put it out son, and we’ll all back it”).
Later in this same song, we get a taste of the notorious and infamous groupies who prowled rock star haunts throughout the early-to-mid ‘70s (“the Cockettes and the ‘Casters”), and just how much temptation was being presented to these two young guys who were also being told they’re the greatest thing on earth. So even though Bernie found his first wife, Maxine—the L.A. Lady from “Tiny Dancer” fame—he is quick to note that during this time “for every Tiny Dancer, there’s a dog that’s had its day.”
However, through that early stretch of stardom, the two did manage to keep their wits about them (at least for a while), because they had each other to keep themselves somewhat grounded amid the dizzying heights they were reaching in those lightning-fast first five years of stardom.
“We’re not as dumb as we might look / You can’t keep us in the dark / With me and you, it’s two by two”
Wouldn’t Have It Any Other Way
By the time of the third song, the engine of stardom is firing on all cylinders, as Bernie chooses to move the proceedings to their other favorite American locale: New York City.
In this song, the decadence of their mid-70s heyday is beginning to pour through for the first time, as they seem to be slowly giving in to temptation.
I’d wake with a stranger under the covers / Late in the day and longing for the night / Just like the snowfall there’s so many bodies, but somehow it feels so right
There’s also era-specific references about exactly where they stayed in the Big Apple, such as the 1972 murder site of mobster Joey Gallo and the mention of such then-trendy hotspots as Studio 54.
Despite their “top of the world, ma” fame, it was around the time of the famous two concerts at Dodger Stadium in 1975 that stardom was finally getting just too big to handle. Elton attempted suicide shortly before these iconic concerts and Bernie himself recalls being backstage and looking at the immense audience around the stadium and saying to himself that they had reached the pinnacle.
As Bernie told me during one of our interviews: “What was happening at that time, and probably the reason we were so screwed up, is that we had done everything. There was no mountain to scale or to conquer anymore. We had filled the biggest stadiums. We had seven consecutive #1 albums. At that point in time, Elton John farting would have sold, and that’s intense pressure to be under because you suddenly realize that there’s no place to go but down. We were all at the high-point there of abusing ourselves to the max. It was Jack Daniels and lines on the console. Luckily, we’re all still alive to tell the tale. And after the Blue Moves album in 1976, I had to get away. I moved to Mexico for six months to dry out, because I think we were all killing ourselves.”
Tinderbox
With the album’s fourth song—the excellent “Tinderbox”—we have entered the period of the post-Blue Moves period in 1976 and through the failed 1978 single, “Ego,” when the two realized the inevitable decline was not only creeping up on them, but had indeed arrived, or as Bernie writes:
We’d been running hot up until today / But a wind of change blew across our sales / We were coasting on a winning streak / We were kings until the power failed
*note that “sales” is not a typo for “sails” but a very clever Taupin using the sailboat metaphor to note the reality of their loss of popularity and record “sales”
By the final verse, Bernie is addressing the duo’s short-lived split following Blue Moves, even mentioning his own personal move down south where he attempted to dry-out (“the sun descends down in Mexico”), while Elton was still in England living his extravagant life of indulgence (“while a fancy car back on Savile Row shows the price of fame leads to overkill”).
It was obvious that the split between the two songwriters had to happen (“things are gonna have to change”) and finally both men realize they have to get away from each other, or as Taupin poetically says in the song:
Pressure’s gonna cook us if we don’t unlock it / Gun’s going off if we don’t uncock it / We’ve gotta climb out of the other one’s pocket / Or we’re gonna burn-out on this beautiful rocket
Across the River Thames
The proper placement for this excellent bonus track is right here. In this song—inexcusably omitted from the album proper—Bernie writes about Elton’s continued belief in himself during the duo’s separation through to their mega-successful reunion in the early Eighties, cementing their relationship up to the current day. And how these two still stood together after all this time, literally immovable like other London-based statues and images that never disappear:
Nelson’s on his column / Ravens are in the Tower / Big Ben’s never lost his voice, chimes on every hour / And the fog rolls across the River Thames
The song addresses a slew of music trends that came and died, while these two remain alive and a musical constant in an industry bent on pushing something new as often as possible:
First comes the death of disco (“disco balls and spandex pants on questionable friends/Disco died, but the fog still rolled across the River Thames”)
Next comes Johnny Rotten and his punk ilk who very publicly decried Elton and his musical lineage (“Snarling they just came along and cut us to to the quick / Called us a bunch of dinosaurs and give us a load of stick / Told us that the times was changing and all good things must end / But I’m still standing and the fog still rolls across the River Thames”)
Then comes the MTV generation (“Hair got teased beyond belief”) while revolving bands like Spandau Ballet took turns being the top-charting one-hit wonder (“the new romantics claimed the throne and we were wondering when, but they lost their crown and the fog still rolled across the River Thames”).
Finally we hit the tabloid “rent-boy scandal” about Elton that hit at the time when their career was not exactly living up to their past (“Big bold letters screaming out a scandal in the house” and “careers going south” and how the tabloid media during the mid-80s fully believed that “the truth was meant to bend”).
And The House Fell Down
By the end of “Across The River Thames,” despite their renewed success, Elton had reached the point of no return in terms of his own personal demons, and it would all be laid out on this excellent track which takes us directly to the 1990s.
Elton takes a rollicking approach to the subject of his addictions and ultimate recovery that he has too often wrapped into a ballad. The juxtaposition of the lyrics and the music on “The House Fell Down” are as surprising—and as fulfilling—as he once did with “I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself” back in the Honky Chateau days in 1972 and the resulting song is one of this album’s best.
This song is as straight-forward as any that Bernie has ever written and it’s powerful in its simplicity and could only have been written by someone who has danced endlessly with the Peruvian Devil himself:
With a rolled up note I’m hovering on that line / Three days on a diet of cocaine and wind / And a little weed just to level me sometimes / So don’t knock on my door / Don’t try to call / I’m holed up in this room, talking to the wall / When you’re high as this, you think you know it all / When you’re this deep in, there’s no place else to fall
So by the end of the first-half of the album, this is what we’ve seen, heard and experienced:
– we’ve seen their arrival in the States in 1970
– we’ve seen the media call them the next big thing
– we’ve seen them achieve superstardom and battle temptation
– we’ve seen them split-up
– we’ve seen a whirlwind of musical trends (disco, punk new wave)
– we’ve seen them reunite and outlast those same musical trends
– we’ve seen them both succumb to their personal demons and address them by the early 90s
Blues Never Fade Away
And now we move on to the second leg of this unique musical journey… The second-half of the album changes narrative course for the first time, as the absolutely spell-binding “Blues Never Fade Away” is the first song on the album where we are now taking stock of the past. It’s an emotional and powerful look back at those who touched our lives but are no longer with us, and how fragile life can be. And how WE somehow survived the stupid risks we took and decisions we made, while others on the same trail are no longer with us.
Taupin’s simple eternal question sums it all up for every one of us who has cheated death despite our often dumb choices: “And how did we get so lucky?” A haunting question that can never be answered, no matter how many times we pose it.
The chorus of this beautiful song is one of the best Taupin has ever written over the past 40-some years, and Elton’s vocal performance is stellar throughout:
And how did we get so lucky?
Targets on the rifle range
Who makes the call and who gets to choose?
Who gets to win and who gets to lose?
It’s like a rolling dice in the belly of the blues
And blues never fade away
Incidentally, for the more curious-minded, here is the real story about those tragic figures that Bernie writes about in “Blues Never Fade Away”:
First verse is about an L.A. restaurant owner and close friend of Bernie’s who died of AIDS before there was much news about the disease.
Second verse is about a girl who was another close friend of Bernie’s who died of a brain aneurysm in a store on Hollywood Boulevard
Third verse is about Elton’s close friend Gianni Versace
And, of course, there is the small reference at the end of the song to the most famous of their late friends, in which Bernie writes, “I miss John Lennon’s laugh”
The Bridge
Next comes the solo piano ballad (and weak choice as a single) “The Bridge.” A pleasant enough song dealing with the theme of personal survival amidst the never-ending series of life choices we all have to make at one time or another. It’s about finding that spark of youthful enthusiasm during those times when you feel your age more than you should.
Crossing that bridge rather than fading away is something we all come across in middle-age at some point; and finding yourself balanced on that often blurry line dividing personal contentment and restless acceptance.
The song carries the powerful sentiment that a risk is worth the crossing of the bridge even if it results in momentary failure, while the retreat from the journey (the fading away) can only get easier and easier until your life itself becomes controlled by a “cruel tide” on which you ride.
Incidentally, Bernie was adamant that Elton record this song with the piano alone; no other instruments. Elton did this as a favor to his partner, adding only the haunting backing vocals. Unfortunately, this decision leaves the song much more bland than it could have with some instrumental support, especially since the playing by longtime bandmates Nigel Olsson, Davey Johnstone, and the rest of the crew is definitely the best this particular band has ever performed in the studio.
I Must Have Lost It On the Wind
Fortunately, things rebound very quickly with the album’s closing trilogy, beginning with the wistful “I Must Have Lost It On The Wind,” an honest assessment of our past loves, and the ultimate recognition of our own stubbornness and failings at the time. Bernie’s bitterness towards some of his three failed marriages can be heard in the truly moving chorus:
From one, you learn something / Another you learn nothing / And there’s one who might teach you everything / But before I learned to listen / And if indeed someone said it / Then I guess I must have lost it on the wind
That bitterness is pointed outwards as well in this less-than-loving recollection:
One was just a trophy catch / And one was like a curse / Some would want to bleed you dry / Some might quench your thirst
And while each of his marriages resulted in some memorable songs for us, the reality was less successful, even though he says he thought each of them would last:
In warm seas I cast a line / And swore the heart I was reeling in was perfect at the time / You couldn’t tell me I was wrong / You couldn’t tell me anything / And if you did then I guess I must have lost it on the wind
The song’s title springs from Taupin’s love of an old cowboy cliché when a wrangler yells across a wide-open prairie to someone and the other person can’t hear what is being said, they’ll say, “Say it again, I lost it on the wind.”
It’s a wonderful phrase that Taupin uses to describe those times in our lives when we refuse to listen to people who only have our best interests at heart. Incidentally, Bernie married Heather Kidd in 2004 and they have two children, so the fourth time has been the charm for the Brown Dirt Cowboy.
Old ’67
The next song, “Old ’67” (probably my personal favorites on the album), takes place in the present day and brings us up to date. It’s a wonderful melancholy story about when Bernie and Elton got together at Elton’s home in France to discuss this new album. They both admit that haven’t had such a get-together in many years: just the two of them together. The town mouse and country mouse together by themselves again.
The result of that meeting is just a goosebump-inducing song for me, as one who loves to occasionally reminisce with longtime friends—some that have been with me through thick and thin for up to 30 years or more. It’s a fulfilling experience to share with those who knew you when you had dreams that didn’t come true while other dreams did, and still other events exceeded your early naïve dreams. That can’t be shared as intently with those who weren’t with you all those years ago.
And Bernie couldn’t have painted this get-together of two lifelong friends any better than if he had a canvas and a brush. You can almost hear the quiet laughter and the knowing nods of recognition between these two friends as they “shoot the breeze” a full 40 years after they first met.
Back then they were kids; just two young, struggling artists in search of a dream, making sacrifices, no money for heat or food; just an unbridled love of achieving something special together.
Now, here they are, two grown men in the late stages of life, and you can literally hear the conversation. “Can’t believe we’re sitting in this mansion in France, remember when we lived on Oxford Street, we’ve come a long way” or just listen to Elton sing Bernie’s lyrical transcript:
Don’t often do this / We never really get the chance / Nearly froze to death on Oxford Street / Now we’re sitting in the South of France / Talking through the evening / It’s good to shoot the breeze / Just you and me on a balcony / And cicadas singing in the trees
Then a clink of the glasses for the moving chorus where they rejoice in the memory of the year they met, laugh at the years gone by, and ultimately celebrate the happiness of being the age they are today:
Old ‘67 what a time it was / What a time of innocence / What a time we’ve lost / Raise a glass and have a laugh / Have a laugh or two / Here’s to old ‘67 / And an Older Me and You
Of special note on this special song is Bernie’s wink and nod of ending the song with the first line from their first hit, “Your Song.” A great idea for such a moving song that can’t help bring a smile to the face of all longtime fans. Beautiful.
The Captain and the Kid
Finally we reach the end with the title track, the perfect final chapter to how this lengthy odyssey began with the very first musical chapter, the song “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.”
Here’s Bernie the “tumbleweed” and Elton living life “on a yellow brick road.” There’s Elton the “urban soul in a fine silk suit” and Bernie’s “heart out west in a Wrangler shirt.” The shy poet from Lincolnshire who turned into “the Brown Dirt Cowboy” and the pub pianist from Northwood Hills who turned “into a Rocket Man.”
Once again, Bernie comes up with a chorus that is an amazing piece of writing about two men who kept their artistic integrity intact more often than not. Two men who never tried to be more than they were, and—unlike most of their contemporaries—they also always looked to the future, steadfastly refusing to rest on their considerable laurels or live in the past:
And you can’t go back and if you try it fails / Looking up ahead I see a rusty nail / A sign hanging from it, saying ‘Truth For Sale’ / And that’s what we did / No lies at all, just one more tale about the Captain and the Kid
The only real sad omission is that Elton didn’t record music for the twelfth lyric that Bernie wrote for this masterpiece of an album. Simply titled “12” the lyrics, which are included in the album liner notes, sound to be Bernie’s final goodbye:
That’s it, I guess / It’s been some trip / But we’ll just shrug and say, “it’s just my job, it’s all I know” / I hope we did okay
Fortunately, Elton and Bernie will return to the studio with a new batch of material to bring us all another musical gift that we have no right to expect or demand after so much they’ve given us already. But The Captain and the Kid stands as the perfect autobiographical summation of the greatest songwriting team in pop music history. And to this day, nearly 15 years later, it remains a majestic album that should always be discussed alongside such other classic John/Taupin albums as Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.