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Rating: In Paradise, where everything is harmony, should you ever be there, they will never play this music for you, dear Captain Beefheart.
At most, an extra-terrestrial Lucifer down in Hell might be interested in it.
Yes, because, for those who have read the story (like me) and imagine, especially if listening for the first time, it is like facing an incomprehensible monolith similar to that of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Only that this monolith is not on Earth at the Dawn of Man, nor on the Moon in 1999.
It is on Earth, yes, but in 1969 (a year after the film), and it has a door (closed), which suggests that there must be someone inside and, as the story goes, it is in the middle of the countryside and it is not black.
It has the shape of a house, and it also has semi-open windows.
From that monolith, no sound comes out when you touch it with your hands.
Every now and then, you hear someone talking, whispering, background noises, and then a voice like a lustful ogre, about an hour and twenty minutes of wild singing interspersed with surreal poems, guitar clangs, and drum beats, odd times, and not only that.
Every now and then, you hear a few whips, even a frightened flute screaming notes of pain, as if the ogre demanded a lot from his companions.
A relationship, let's say, of total creative subjugation, between the lustful ogre and the other inhabitants of the house.
All recorded live.
Now, if you have the courage, take a break and listen to Moonlight on Vermont (for a wolf, it fits perfectly), one of the more "accessible" "songs".
I listened to the Trout Mask Replica monolith for the first time, years ago, from behind a tree, so as not to be seen.
I can't play very well, especially such a wild blues like this, and I didn't want to end up like the companions.
Every now and then (as happened today) I like to take a walk in the woods and, always from behind the same tree, I start listening again, to cleanse myself from the simple pleasure of listening to music.
Music as extraordinary as it is irregular, so little pleasant (in the classic sense) that you can't even find it on Spotify (at least as an album..).
In any case, you can find it in the music of the many who were inspired by this Beefheart, primarily Tom Waits from the mid-'80s onward, and that one is on Spotify.
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 jodo
This album is a wild ride to the origin of sounds, between guttural screams and gramophone-era orchestras playing twenty-first-century blues.
I still certainly listen to "Trout Mask Replica" knowing it will never be remastered.
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.
