Captain Jack (song)
Encyclopedia
"Captain Jack" is a song by Billy Joel
featured on his 1973 album Piano Man
with a live version on his 1981 album Songs in the Attic
. Joel originally wrote the song, an anti-drug song, in 1971, while observing some people from his window obtaining drugs from a dealer named "Captain Jack".
It is the most important and pivotal of his early compositions because his performance of the song at an April 15, 1972 live radio concert at Sigma Studios on WMMR
in Philadelphia
, and the subsequent airplay this live version received on the station, brought him to the attention of major record labels, including Columbia
, with which he would sign a recording contract in 1973.
Reception for the song was very positive. The song entered the news again during Hillary Clinton's campaign for US Senate in New York
, when the song was mistakenly played during a rally, instead of "New York State of Mind
".
, looking out the window, trying to find inspiration for a song. Across the street was a housing project, and he observed suburban teenagers going into the project and obtaining heroin from a dealer known as "Captain Jack". "It's about coming out of the New York suburbs," Joel told John Kalodner
in 1974. "But in my travels I have seen a lot of the same suburb all over the country. The song is sort of brutal, but sometimes it is good to be brutal and offend people—it keeps them on their toes."
The song, according to Joel, is an anti-drug song. He says, "What's so horrible about an affluent young white teenager's life that he's got to shoot heroin? It's really a song about what I consider to be a pathetic loser kind of lifestyle. I've been accused of, 'Oh, this song promotes drug use
and masturbation
.' No, no, no. Listen to the song. This guy is a loser." In writing about the song in the liner notes of his Songs in the Attic
album, Joel once again emphasized the point: "...so many friends shoveled under the Long Island dirt. The miracle of modern chemistry killed them if Vietnam didn't."
, Joel undertook a tour that lasted through most of the spring and into the early summer of 1972. One of the people who noticed and liked the LP was the music director of Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM
, Dennis Wilen. He arranged to have Joel perform a concert for radio-station listeners who won tickets. On Saturday night, April 15, 1972, Joel performed an hour-long concert in front of these contest winners at Sigma Sound Studios
in Philadelphia. Joel and his touring band from 1971-1972 (Larry Russell on bass guitar, Al Hertzberg on lead guitar, Rhys Clark on drums) performed 12 songs, seven from Cold Spring Harbor and five songs he had not yet recorded. Some of the songs were later recorded for the Piano Man LP, including "The Ballad of Billy The Kid", "Travelin' Prayer", and "Captain Jack".
"Captain Jack" was immediately embraced by WMMR's audience. For the next year and a half, the station kept its live version of the song in regular rotation. Listeners called in, wanting to know where they could find the song and on what album it appeared. The song was such a big hit in Philadelphia that several New York radio stations got their own tape copies and began to play it as well. Though Columbia Records' then-president, Clive Davis
, first noticed Joel at the Mar y Sol festival
in Puerto Rico
on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1972, the constant airplay of Joel's unreleased song kept the label's attention. Columbia Records did their best to track Joel down. After turning down a record deal from Atlantic Records
, Joel signed with Columbia in the spring of 1973.
. It quickly became a staple of FM rock stations after the album's release in November 1973. This song, along with the songs "Piano Man" and "The Entertainer
", were the songs that Joel was best known for before the release of The Stranger
in 1977.
Reception for the song was mostly positive. Jack Breschard of Rolling Stone
called it one of Joel's "best efforts". Ira Mayer called it Joel's "signature piece," and Stephen Holden said the song, a "centerpiece" of the album, "compelled attention for [its] despairing portraits of urban fringe life, despite [the] underlying shallowness." Holden also believed that the song had a Bob Dylan
feel to it. "As with so many rock stars, one of his most important early influences was Bob Dylan–in fact, "Piano Man" and "Captain Jack," two of his more ambitious early tunes, as well as the more recent and better "She's Always a Woman," are practically keyboard parodies of Dylan critiques," Holden says. Author Hank Bordowitz called "Captain Jack" "as bleak a portrait of growing up in the affluent suburbs as anything before L.A. punk hit nearly a decade later". However, Stuart Levine of Variety
felt that while the song was "lyrically expansive," it was also a "dark" song by Joel. Ron Rosenbaum of Slate
, in a review of Joel's songs, was not a fan of the song, summing it up by saying, "Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and masturbates and shoots up heroin and is an all-around phony in the eyes of the songwriter who is so, so superior to him."
Joel made his first television appearance in the wake of the release of Piano Man, on the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert
program, in a performance recorded live in Chicago in March 1974. "Captain Jack" was one of the three songs that were broadcast. In keeping with U.S. broadcast television standards of the time, Joel was forced to alter the lyrics slightly. Instead of singing the line "You just sit at home and masturbate", he sang, "You just sit at home and la la la". Kirshner recalled, "I knew he was going to be a big star, and so did he."
By 1980, "Captain Jack" had mostly disappeared from Joel's concert setlists. Nevertheless, he always played it in Philadelphia, because he never forgot the role the song and the city played in his early career. A version recorded at The Spectrum
in July 1980 was used on his live album, Songs in the Attic
. Joel wrote, "'Captain Jack' plays with much more power and conviction when a roaring Philadelphia audience sets off a kind of internal explosion and the adrenaline screams through our veins ... When we play 'Captain Jack', we are actually committing an act of pure brutality." Timothy White of Rolling Stone did not like this version, calling it "grating".
The song entered the news again in 2000 when it was mistakenly used during Hillary Clinton's announcement that she would be campaigning for U.S. Senate. Her presumed opponent, Rudolph Giuliani, who ended up not running for the Senate, criticized the song's use because of its alleged glorification of drugs. Giuliani even read the lyrics to the song in a live press conference. Joel replied in a statement, "There are a lot of important issues facing the voters in this Senate race. Is a politician's interpretation of a song I wrote nearly 30 years ago an issue to the voters of New York state? I do not think so." According to an NPR
report on worst campaign songs, a staffer notes that the playing of "Captain Jack" was a mistake. It was played from the Billy Joel compilation CD Greatest Hits Volume 1, and the song intended to be played was "New York State of Mind
", which was track five on the CD. The Clinton staffer inadvertently played track two, which was "Captain Jack".
Billy Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
featured on his 1973 album Piano Man
Piano Man (album)
Piano Man is a rock album by Billy Joel, released in 1973. Piano Man, Joel's second album and his first with Columbia Records, emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album...
with a live version on his 1981 album Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic is the first live album by Billy Joel, released in 1981 .At the time of its release, it was unique as being the first widely available appearance of music from his first album, Cold Spring Harbor from 1971....
. Joel originally wrote the song, an anti-drug song, in 1971, while observing some people from his window obtaining drugs from a dealer named "Captain Jack".
It is the most important and pivotal of his early compositions because his performance of the song at an April 15, 1972 live radio concert at Sigma Studios on WMMR
WMMR
WMMR is an active rock radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting at 93.3 MHz FM. The station is owned by Greater Media....
in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, and the subsequent airplay this live version received on the station, brought him to the attention of major record labels, including Columbia
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
, with which he would sign a recording contract in 1973.
Reception for the song was very positive. The song entered the news again during Hillary Clinton's campaign for US Senate in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, when the song was mistakenly played during a rally, instead of "New York State of Mind
New York State of Mind
"New York State of Mind" is a song written by Billy Joel which initially appeared on the album Turnstiles in 1976. While not a hit when it was first released, it has received much more frequent airplay in recent years...
".
Composition
Joel wrote "Captain Jack" in late 1971, while sitting in his apartment in Oyster Bay, Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, looking out the window, trying to find inspiration for a song. Across the street was a housing project, and he observed suburban teenagers going into the project and obtaining heroin from a dealer known as "Captain Jack". "It's about coming out of the New York suburbs," Joel told John Kalodner
John Kalodner
John David Kalodner is a retired American A&R executive. His achievements included signing Foreigner, AC/DC, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins to Atlantic Records in the seventies....
in 1974. "But in my travels I have seen a lot of the same suburb all over the country. The song is sort of brutal, but sometimes it is good to be brutal and offend people—it keeps them on their toes."
The song, according to Joel, is an anti-drug song. He says, "What's so horrible about an affluent young white teenager's life that he's got to shoot heroin? It's really a song about what I consider to be a pathetic loser kind of lifestyle. I've been accused of, 'Oh, this song promotes drug use
Recreational drug use
Recreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
and masturbation
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
.' No, no, no. Listen to the song. This guy is a loser." In writing about the song in the liner notes of his Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic is the first live album by Billy Joel, released in 1981 .At the time of its release, it was unique as being the first widely available appearance of music from his first album, Cold Spring Harbor from 1971....
album, Joel once again emphasized the point: "...so many friends shoveled under the Long Island dirt. The miracle of modern chemistry killed them if Vietnam didn't."
Pre-release
To promote his debut album, Cold Spring HarborCold Spring Harbor (album)
Cold Spring Harbor was Billy Joel's first solo album, and was released in 1971. He had already released several albums as a member of the bands The Hassles and Attila...
, Joel undertook a tour that lasted through most of the spring and into the early summer of 1972. One of the people who noticed and liked the LP was the music director of Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM
WMMR
WMMR is an active rock radio station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, broadcasting at 93.3 MHz FM. The station is owned by Greater Media....
, Dennis Wilen. He arranged to have Joel perform a concert for radio-station listeners who won tickets. On Saturday night, April 15, 1972, Joel performed an hour-long concert in front of these contest winners at Sigma Sound Studios
Sigma Sound Studios
Sigma Sound Studios is an American music recording studio in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania founded by recording engineer Joseph Tarsia in 1968.Located at 212 N. 12th Street in Philadelphia, it was the second studio in the country to offer 24-track recording and the first in the country to use console...
in Philadelphia. Joel and his touring band from 1971-1972 (Larry Russell on bass guitar, Al Hertzberg on lead guitar, Rhys Clark on drums) performed 12 songs, seven from Cold Spring Harbor and five songs he had not yet recorded. Some of the songs were later recorded for the Piano Man LP, including "The Ballad of Billy The Kid", "Travelin' Prayer", and "Captain Jack".
"Captain Jack" was immediately embraced by WMMR's audience. For the next year and a half, the station kept its live version of the song in regular rotation. Listeners called in, wanting to know where they could find the song and on what album it appeared. The song was such a big hit in Philadelphia that several New York radio stations got their own tape copies and began to play it as well. Though Columbia Records' then-president, Clive Davis
Clive Davis
Clive Davis is an American record producer and music industry executive. He has won five Grammy Awards and is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer. From 1967 to 1973 he was the President of Columbia Records. He was the founder and president of Arista Records from 1975...
, first noticed Joel at the Mar y Sol festival
Mar y sol festival
The Mar y Sol Festival was a Woodstock-like music festival that took place in Manatí, Puerto Rico, on April 1–3, 1972. It was held on of countryside by Los Tubos beach in Vega Baja on the north shore of the island....
in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
on Easter Sunday, April 2, 1972, the constant airplay of Joel's unreleased song kept the label's attention. Columbia Records did their best to track Joel down. After turning down a record deal from Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
, Joel signed with Columbia in the spring of 1973.
Release and reaction
"Captain Jack" was one of the 10 songs recorded in Los Angeles for Joel's Columbia debut, Piano ManPiano Man (album)
Piano Man is a rock album by Billy Joel, released in 1973. Piano Man, Joel's second album and his first with Columbia Records, emerged out of legal difficulties with his former label, Family Productions, and became his breakthrough album...
. It quickly became a staple of FM rock stations after the album's release in November 1973. This song, along with the songs "Piano Man" and "The Entertainer
The Entertainer (song)
"The Entertainer" is a single by singer Billy Joel released as the only single from his 1974 album Streetlife Serenade. The song peaked at #34 on the US charts, a Top 40 hit for Joel that year...
", were the songs that Joel was best known for before the release of The Stranger
The Stranger (album)
The Stranger is the fifth studio album by musician Billy Joel, released in 1977 . While his four previous albums had been moderate chart successes, this was his breakthrough album, and is generally regarded by critics as his magnum opus, spending six weeks at #2 in the U.S. album charts...
in 1977.
Reception for the song was mostly positive. Jack Breschard of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
called it one of Joel's "best efforts". Ira Mayer called it Joel's "signature piece," and Stephen Holden said the song, a "centerpiece" of the album, "compelled attention for [its] despairing portraits of urban fringe life, despite [the] underlying shallowness." Holden also believed that the song had a Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
feel to it. "As with so many rock stars, one of his most important early influences was Bob Dylan–in fact, "Piano Man" and "Captain Jack," two of his more ambitious early tunes, as well as the more recent and better "She's Always a Woman," are practically keyboard parodies of Dylan critiques," Holden says. Author Hank Bordowitz called "Captain Jack" "as bleak a portrait of growing up in the affluent suburbs as anything before L.A. punk hit nearly a decade later". However, Stuart Levine of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
felt that while the song was "lyrically expansive," it was also a "dark" song by Joel. Ron Rosenbaum of Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, in a review of Joel's songs, was not a fan of the song, summing it up by saying, "Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and masturbates and shoots up heroin and is an all-around phony in the eyes of the songwriter who is so, so superior to him."
Joel made his first television appearance in the wake of the release of Piano Man, on the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert is a television music variety show that ran during the 1970s and early 1980s, created and produced by Don Kirshner and syndicated to television stations...
program, in a performance recorded live in Chicago in March 1974. "Captain Jack" was one of the three songs that were broadcast. In keeping with U.S. broadcast television standards of the time, Joel was forced to alter the lyrics slightly. Instead of singing the line "You just sit at home and masturbate", he sang, "You just sit at home and la la la". Kirshner recalled, "I knew he was going to be a big star, and so did he."
By 1980, "Captain Jack" had mostly disappeared from Joel's concert setlists. Nevertheless, he always played it in Philadelphia, because he never forgot the role the song and the city played in his early career. A version recorded at The Spectrum
Wachovia Spectrum
The Spectrum, formerly known as the CoreStates Spectrum , First Union Spectrum , and Wachovia Spectrum was an indoor arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
in July 1980 was used on his live album, Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic
Songs in the Attic is the first live album by Billy Joel, released in 1981 .At the time of its release, it was unique as being the first widely available appearance of music from his first album, Cold Spring Harbor from 1971....
. Joel wrote, "'Captain Jack' plays with much more power and conviction when a roaring Philadelphia audience sets off a kind of internal explosion and the adrenaline screams through our veins ... When we play 'Captain Jack', we are actually committing an act of pure brutality." Timothy White of Rolling Stone did not like this version, calling it "grating".
The song entered the news again in 2000 when it was mistakenly used during Hillary Clinton's announcement that she would be campaigning for U.S. Senate. Her presumed opponent, Rudolph Giuliani, who ended up not running for the Senate, criticized the song's use because of its alleged glorification of drugs. Giuliani even read the lyrics to the song in a live press conference. Joel replied in a statement, "There are a lot of important issues facing the voters in this Senate race. Is a politician's interpretation of a song I wrote nearly 30 years ago an issue to the voters of New York state? I do not think so." According to an NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
report on worst campaign songs, a staffer notes that the playing of "Captain Jack" was a mistake. It was played from the Billy Joel compilation CD Greatest Hits Volume 1, and the song intended to be played was "New York State of Mind
New York State of Mind
"New York State of Mind" is a song written by Billy Joel which initially appeared on the album Turnstiles in 1976. While not a hit when it was first released, it has received much more frequent airplay in recent years...
", which was track five on the CD. The Clinton staffer inadvertently played track two, which was "Captain Jack".