History Music / CaptainBeefheart

* {{Bookends}}: The fuzzbox used on the last song the band recorded, "Skeleton Makes Good", was directly inspired by the one used in the first song they recorded, "Diddy Wah Diddy". A unintentional one, as at the time, Beefheart was considering recording more material, but later decided to retire.

* OutsiderMusic: Beefheart was deemed an outsider musician by Irwin Chusid, because of his highly personal and unorthodox way of making music, clearly without any commercial potential.

* IAmTheBand: Van Vliet was pretty much the only permanent member of the band. The duration of membership for the rest of the band depended on how much tolerance they had for his abuse. John "Drumbo" French was one of the relative constants, playing with the Magic Band during their ''Music/TroutMaskReplica'' period and returning to service during the Captain's brief early 80s comeback.

** The line "Street lamps flutter like fireflies" in "Love Lies" was reused from "25th Century Quaker". It's rumored that Beefheart did write "Love Lies" as a poem in the late 60s but never put it to music at the time, thus quoted it here.

** The music for "The Smithsonian Institute Blues" was originally written in the ''Strictly Personal'' period for "Sugar Baby Sugar", an unreleased song with lyrics from a Herb Bermann poem. The original recording featured a different bassline from then bass player Jerry Handley and would have lacked the marimba of the ''Decals'' recording. This recording has never been released and is seemingly lost, but is mentioned by John French in Herb Bermann's book ''The Mystery Man from the Magic Band'' in which the poem "Sugar Baby Sugar" appears.

** Upon first becoming friends, Zappa found Beefheart's habit of staying in his room listening to R&B records, eating leftover food and screaming at his mother to bring him a Pepsi funny, leading him to later write a song mocking Beefheart named "Why Doesn't Someone Get Him a Pepsi?". It appeared on ''Music/BongoFury'' and was substantially reworked later to become "The Torture Never Stops".

** "Beatle Bones n' Smokin' Stones" from ''Music/StrictlyPersonal'' was said to have been written in reaction to Music/TheBeatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "A Day in the Life". The reason for this is he didn't like the line "I'd love to turn you on" as he thought it was vulgar of them to say it in a song. The kicker? The Beatles ''liked'' his music! They even planned to sign him to their Zapple label before Allen Klein shut it down, and Lennon had two ''Music/SafeAsMilk'' Bumper Stickers on a cupboard in his house and was photographed next to them.

*** His album ''Clear Spot'' was characterised by three - "Too Much Time" (a radio oriented motown tribute), "My Head Is My Only House Unless It Rains" and "Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles" (both love ballads).
*** The albums ''Music/UnconditionallyGuaranteed'' and ''Bluejeans & Moonbeams'' took the mood of the three ''Clear Spot'' songs and wrote whole albums in their style, something which wasn't very successful.
*** Harry Irene on ''Music/ShinyBeast''. Surprisingly the song had been around since the late 60s.

* CreatorThumbprint: Vliet was said to have enjoyed candy a lot, which led to the writing of "Abba Zabba" and "Kandy Korn".
** A prime example of Beefheart's philosophy is his love of animals and preference for them over humans, as well as environmental concerns over the impact of humans on the ecosystem. Several examples of his philosophy are "Ant Man Bee", "Wild Life", "Blabber and Smoke" and "Apes-Ma".

* ColbertBump: John Peel was frequently this for Beefheart in the UK.
* CutSong:
** "Funeral Hill" and "Kiss Me My Love" from the ''Spotlight Kid'' sessions, "Little Scratch" from the ''Clear Spot'' sessions (although its music was later reused for "The Past Sure Is Tense"). There are numerous other examples from this period.
** Whilst most of the tracks from the then-unreleased album ''Bat Chain Puller'' were re-recorded across Beefheart's last three albums ''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'', ''Doc at the Radar Station'', and ''Ice Cream for Crow'', the songs "Seam Crooked Sam" and "Odd Jobs" were not. Beefheart did want to keep some of the songs exclusive in case he got the rights to release the album at a later date, but it never happened during his lifetime.

* GrowingTheBeard: Whilst the group had a reputation as a hard rhythm & blues group, "Electricity" (and particularly the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_QCjmZnUmM video]] of it at the Cannes Festival) established them as something bizarre indeed.The abstract lyrics recited in an unconventional manner, the unorthodox drum patterns, and slide guitar used in a freeform manner were like nothing before heard.

* LateExportForYou: Due to a contractual issue (The LP was recorded for Warner in the US whilst Beefheart was still contracted to Virgin elsewhere), 1978's "Shiny Beast" did not get released in the UK until 1980. As promotion was focused on his current LP "Doc At The Radar Station" at the time, it went somewhat under the radar.
** The UK did not receive the A&M singles until the mid-80s EP "The Legendary A&M Sessions". Only a mono version of "Safe As Milk" was released there in the 60s - it took a few years for the first stereo version to appear there (as "Dropout Boogie") and it initially omitted two tracks.

* ThePeteBest: The original drummer Vic Mortenson, who lasted from Van Vliet & Zappa's pre-Magic band material right through to the recording of the A&M material, was most famously the author of the original version of "Call On Me" (the slow demo version found on Grow Fins). Due to his military training, he was called up for service and couldn't continue with the group. His successor PG Blakely is even more of an example since he was replaced by John French. The guitarist Doug Moon has the distinction of playing live with the group and on their A&M material, though he left prior to Safe As Milk.

* RevivalByCommercialization: "Moonlight On Vermont" was not a single at the time of Trout Mask Replica, but it is practically Beefheart's theme song whenever he is mentioned on the BBC. For a while, Radio 6 played it regularly.
* SampledUp: The backing music in "The Blimp" is "Charles Ives" by The Mothers, who were rehearsing in the next room whilst Music/FrankZappa was taking the call that produced the lyrics. Zappa liked the combination so much he says (as is heard at the end) that they should use it as is for the album. Although performing it live, Zappa didn't originally use "Charles Ives" on an album, only including a live version on ''You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore'' years later. (It later did appear on some reissues of ''Music/WeaselsRippedMyFlesh'' as the closing section of "Didja Get Any Onya?", though.). In an interesting example, the two musicians who played on Charles Ives (percussionist Art Tripp and bassist Roy Estrada) - were later in the Magic Band, with the latter joining only for the Clear Spot era, so performances of the Blimp in that era are legitimate.

* TheyAlsoDid: Three group members got more famous for other groups:
** Ry Cooder (Safe As Milk era, became a solo success)
** Gary Lucas (Last two LPs, later worked with JeffBuckley and wrote the riffs for his popular songs "Mojo Pin" and "Grace")
** Cliff Martinez (Ice Cream For Crow era, worked with RedHotChiliPeppers on their first two LPs)

* GrowingTheBeard: Whilst the group had a reputation as a hard rhythm & blues group, "Electricity" (and particularly the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_QCjmZnUmM video]] of it at the Cannes Festival) established them as something bizarre indeed.The
abstract lyrics recited in an unconventional manner, the unorthodox drum patterns, and slide guitar used in a freeform manner were like nothing before heard.

* GrowingTheBeard: Whilst the group had a reputation as a hard rhythm & blues group, "Electricity" (and particularly the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_QCjmZnUmM video]] of it at the Cannes Festival) established them as something bizarre indeed. The

** "Suction Prints" from ''Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)'' is a rewritten version of the ''Spotlight Kid''-era song "Pompadour Swamp", which originally had more sections.

* RevivalByCommercialization: "Moonlight In Vermont" was not a single at the time of Trout Mask Replica, but it is practically Beefheart's theme song whenever he is mentioned on the BBC. For a while, Radio 6 played it regularly.

* SampledUp: The backing music in "The Blimp" is "Charles Ives" by The Mothers, who were rehearsing in the next room whilst Music/FrankZappa was taking the call that produced the lyrics. Zappa liked the combination so much he says (as is heard at the end) that they should use it as is for the album. Although performing it live, Zappa didn't originally use "Charles Ives" on an album, only including a live version on ''You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore'' years later. (It later did appear on some reissues of ''Music/WeaselsRippedMyFlesh'' as the closing section of "Didja Get Any Onya?", though.)