238: Strictly Personal, by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (USA)
Strictly Personal (1968)
8 tracks, 39 minutes
Spotify

My dad is as mad about Captain Beefheart as the Captain was just mad. He always wanted me to get into the Captain’s music, but I just couldn’t. It was just weird, abstract and unpleasant noise, and no number of times being played Trout Mask Replica could persuade me otherwise. It’s rubbish! I was half-convinced he was doing it just to annoy me. You know, standard dad thing.

Then, one time – I remember it so clearly, it was when we were on our way back from Crewe station, having just picked someone up I think – the music came on, and it was a ‘What is this?!’ moment. Not only did I like it, it blew me away, I loved it straight away. I asked what it was, and I thought my dad was having me on when he said it was Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. But there it was – the album Strictly Personal. And I ‘got’ it in a way I never had before. It all made sense now, for whatever reason, and I got what all the fuss was about. The music had all of those esoteric, angular and out-there aspects of its clashing melodies, unkempt harmonies and rhythms that made no sense on any natural level, but it all worked in complementing the music rather than breaking it apart.

For me, this album worked as sort of like a ‘Rosetta Stone’ for Beefheart’s music. Because I discovered that it wasn’t just Strictly Personal that I understood, but his other albums too. I listened to his first, Safe as Milk, and the strangely controversial Lick My Decals Off, Baby, and loved them just as much. And then, after a while and with some trepidation, I tried Trout Mask Replica…and it worked! While I could still hear all of the same madness that had always put me off when I was younger, it somehow took on a different shape, like one’s tastebuds get used to complex, bitter flavours with age and perseverance, and you learn to appreciate it for exactly that complexity. It was as if Strictly Personal was the key that was necessary to understand the cipher that was Captain Beefheart.

I’ve often wondered what about this album finally struck me in the correct way that Beefheart’s other work hadn’t. I’m still not really sure. The fact that I was at the height of my blues obsession when it hit me probably helped, I think. The first line of the whole album is ‘I got a letter this morning, what do you reckon it read?,’ which would make any bluesnut prick up their ears: it’s the same line that Son House’s ‘Death Letter’ and Skip James’ ‘Special Rider’ both revolve around. But after that one line, it dissolves into vintage Beefheart – lyrics that verge on nonsense (picked mostly for their aesthetic value than any particular underlying meaning), an electrifying blues harp boogie over the top of jaunty rhythms and confusing musical tinkerings. It eases you in. In the same vein later in the album is the track ‘Gimme Dat Harp, Boy’, which, despite its off-kilter angle, should be a blues rock staple. Maybe it was also the production of the album, a self-consciously psychedelic job that was hated by Beefheart and many of his fans, but undoubtedly made the soundworld a little more familiar to those already used to hippy freak-out music. Maybe it was just a maturing of my ears and this album just happened to strike them first. I don’t know.

The music of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band is still divisive after all this time. I definitely understand people who don’t understand it. But if you are genuinely interested in learning the joy held within, I beg you not to start on Trout Mask Replica. I know many do, and get scared off by it. That album is rightly held as a masterpiece but it is difficult, often unpleasant listening. You don’t start drinking by going straight to obscure scotch. Teach your ears to love Beefheart first, and the rest will come. Strictly Personal might just be the perfect place for you to start. It was for me.