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Rating: Everyone has their sacred text in their youth. For me, it was the Fabbri rock encyclopedia (and the intimate Postal Market catalog... but that's another story) collected and bound by the older sister of my best friend. Our afternoons passed between a puff of a cigar stolen from dad's drawer and reading the History of Rock. We went crazy: photos with Randy California's big face, Lennon's psychedelic Rolls, the Canterbury section, etc...
But woe betide buying the records given the lack of means, at most some makeshift cassette. Once, however, I decided it was time to spend a couple of lire. After Zappa in the big book, there was this guy with a top hat holding a lampshade: who the hell is someone who instead of having a nice guitar in his hand is holding a lamp? It was obviously good old Heart Beef... Captain Beefheart!
The text accompanying the photo seemed juicy: new-thing, free rock, friend-enemy of Frank Zappa, record recorded in the Mojave desert, track titles like Dachau Blues and musicians named Mascara Snake, Drumbo, Antenna Jimmy, etc... We decided to get his masterpiece produced by Zappa "Trout Mask Replica": this is one of those albums that when you ask the shopkeeper for it, he immediately laughs in your face. We brought it home for listening, and my friend decreed halfway through the first track (Frownland) that the record in question was an incredible piece of junk. I had lost him. After this shocking record, he put away the rock encyclopedia forever, shifting his interests to more reassuring figures (Sting, Dire Straits, and fools of the like).
For me, however, that record opened up a world. What may seem like a bizarre operation at first listen is actually one of the greatest collections of American music (in this century the Music!) that has ever been heard. Absolutely not an intellectual undertaking unlike many boring experimental records and especially without the smugness of the hipster Zappa. This album is a wild ride to the origin of sounds, between guttural screams and gramophone-era orchestras playing twenty-first-century blues (Waits tried, but no dice).
Free jazz, commercial music, pre-punk, blues, Captain Beefheart ennobles and mixes it all. I no longer read the rock encyclopedia, I no longer hang out with my friend, but I still certainly listen to "Trout Mask Replica" knowing it will never be remastered.
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Frownland (01:40)
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
My spirit's made up of the ocean
And the sky 'n the sun 'n the moon
'n all my eye can see
I cannot go back to yer land of gloom
Where black jagged shadows
Remind me of the comin' of yer doom
I want my own land
Take my hand 'n come with me
It's not too late for you
It's not too late for me
To find my homeland
Where uh man can stand by another man
Without an ego flyin'
With no man lyin'
'n no one dyin' by an earthly hand
Let the devil burn 'n the beggar learn
'n the little girls that live in those old worlds
Take my kind hand
My smile is stuck
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
I cannot go back t' yer Frownland
04 Ella Guru (02:27)
Now here she comes walkin'
Lookin' like uh zoo
Hello Moon Hello Moon
Hi Ella high Ella Guru
She know all the colors that nature do
High Ella high Ella Guru
High yella high red high blue she blew
High Ella high Ella Guru
She do what she mean
'n she do what she do
Got sumptin' fo' me sumptin' fo' you
She sho' sumptin'
She's young too
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ha ha right right
Just dig it
That's right "The Mascara Snake"
Fast 'n bulbous
Tight also
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru Ella Guru
Ella Guru
05 Hair Pie: Bake 1 (04:59)
Woman: We just moved in around here, we heard you playing so we decided we'd come up and find out who it was.
Don Van Vliet: (laughing) Huh huh, yes, er, it's Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band.
Man: Really?
Don Van Vliet: Yeah. Where did yer move here from?
Woman: Oh, just from . . .
Man: (interrupting) Reseda.
Woman: Yeah.
Don Van Vliet: Reseda?
Woman: Yeah.
Don Van Vliet: She's nice . . . Whaddaya think?
Man and woman together: Sounds good.
Don Van Vliet: It's a bush recording. We're out recording bush. Name of the composition is "Neon Meate Dream Of An Octafish."
Woman: Hum um, nice.
Don Van Vliet: No, it's "Hair Pie."
Woman: Look at the drummer there.
Man: Huh.
06 Moonlight on Vermont (03:59)
Moonlight on Vermont affected everybody
Even Mrs. Wooten well as little Nitty
Even lifebuoy floatin'
With his lil' pistol showin'
'n his lil' pistol Totin'
Well that goes t' show you what uh moon can do
No more bridge from Tuesday t' Friday
Everybodies gone high society
Hope lost his head 'n got off on alligators
Somebodies leavin' peanuts on the curbins
For uh white elephant escaped from the zoo with love
Goes t' show you what uh moon can do
Moonlight on Vermont
Well it did it for Lifebuoy
And it did it t' you
'n it did it t' zoo
And it can do it for me
And it can do it for you
Moonlight on Vermont
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
Don't gimme no affliction
Dat ole time religion is good enough for me
Uh it's good enough for you
Well come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Come out t' show dem
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
Gimme dat ole time religion
It's good enough for me
Without yer new affliction
Don't need yer new restrictions
Gimme dat ole time religion
It's good enough for me
Moonlight on Vermont
07 Pachuco Cadaver (04:40)
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast 'n bulbous. Got me?
When she wears her bolero then she begin t' dance
All the pachucos start withold'n hands
When she drives her Chevy Sissy's don't dare t' glance
Yellow jackets 'n red debbles buzzin' round 'er hair hive ho
She wears her past like uh present
Take her fancy in the past
Her sedan skims along the floorboard
Her two pipes hummin' carbon cum
Got her wheel out of uh B-29 Bomber brodey knob amber
Spanish fringe 'n talcum tazzles FOREVER AMBER
She looks like an old squaw indian
she's 99 she won't go down
Avocado green 'n alfalfa yellow adorn her t' the ground
Tatooes 'n tarnished utenzles uh snow white bag full o' tunes
Drives uh cartune around
Drives uh cartune around broma' seltzer blue umbrella
Keeps her up off the ground
Round red sombreros rap 'er high tap horsey shoes
When she unfolds her umbrella pachucos got the blues
Her lovin' makes me so happy
If I smiled I'd crack m' chin
Her eyes are so peaceful thinks it's heaven she been
Her skin is as smooth as the daisies
In the center where the sun shines in
Smiles as sweet as honey
Her teeth as clean as the combs where the bees go in
When she walks flowers surround her
Let their nectar come in to the air around her
She loves her love sticks out like stars
Her lovin' sticks out like stars
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Other reviews
By psychopompe
Trout Mask is anything but an 'improvised' album; it is a masterpiece of premeditated erosion and courageous expansion of rock's boundaries.
It demonstrated how the formal barriers of 'rock' could and should be broken to refresh its primal explosive and irreverent charge.
By Matteo Tarchi
You can no longer see things with the same eyes, nor hear things with the same ears, you are no longer you.
A standalone work of art, which you can hate or love, yet it stands there making history.
By CristianoDA
I don’t consider the Trout a masterpiece so acclaimed by today’s post-internet critics.
The captain was able to dismantle piece by piece every single song, deconstructing the blues canons and randomly reassembling them to the extreme consequences.
By 2000
The captain was a totalitarian schizophrenic, and he demanded that every damn thing be perfect for the creation of his albums.
The most WTF album ever: even today, many critics wonder if this is a joke or a revolutionary work.
By zaireeka
It is like facing an incomprehensible monolith similar to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Music as extraordinary as it is irregular, so little pleasant (in the classic sense) that you can’t even find it on Spotify.
