Billy Joel – Captain Jack

I’ve never been a huge Billy Joel fan, but I do like a lot of his music. I had the Songs In The Attic album, and this is one of the songs that stood out. This is early 1970s Billy, restless and writing about disillusionment, very different from Uptown Girl Billy. I would even say this might be one of the most important songs of his career because of what followed. 

Captain Jack is the drug dealer who breaks up the humdrum life of the narrator. Joel didn’t try to hide that in the lyrics at all. Some stations wouldn’t touch it, but others couldn’t stop spinning it. Joel later said the song wasn’t a glamorization, just an observation of what he’d seen in the Long Island neighborhoods where he grew up.

His debut album, Cold Spring Harbor, had been released with a massive technical flaw; the entire thing was mastered at the wrong speed, making Joel’s voice sound unnaturally high. Promotion was minimal, sales were bad, and Joel was locked into a contract that basically gave him pennies per record. He then did the only thing he could do…tour. 

The song had quite an effect on Joel. Philadelphia’s WMMR-FM invited Joel to perform a live concert in their tiny Sigma Sound Studios space,  just him, drummer Rhys Clark, and bassist Larry Russell. The station’s program director, Michael Tearson, and DJ Ed Sciaky were championing singer-songwriters, and Joel’s Cold Spring Harbor tracks had caught their ear despite the bad pressing.

Joel played an eight-song set, mixing early album cuts with unreleased songs. One of those was Captain Jack. The live performance of this song was rawer and darker than the album tracks he’d been promoting. Listeners lit up the station’s phones, demanding to know where they could buy the song.

Here’s the thing: they couldn’t. Captain Jack wasn’t on Cold Spring Harbor. It wasn’t on any record. WMMR started playing the tape of that live performance regularly, and soon it was one of the station’s most requested tracks,  sometimes more than the current hits by Elton John or the Stones.

The WMMR Captain Jack proved Joel had an audience and that he could connect on FM radio without a hit single. By 1973, Columbia had signed him, sent him to Los Angeles with producer Michael Stewart, and Piano Man was born. This was the closing song on the album that included Piano Man and The Ballad of Billy the Kid. 

Captain Jack

Saturday night and you’re still hangin’ aroundTired of living in your one horse townYou’d like to find a little hole in the groundFor a while, hmm

So you go to the village in your tie-dye jeansAnd you stare at the junkies and the closet queensIt’s like some pornographic magazineAnd you smile, hmm

Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandCaptain Jack will get you by tonightJust a little push, and you’ll be smilin’Oh, yeah

Your sister’s gone out, she’s on a dateAnd you just sit at home and masturbateYour phone is gonna ring soonBut you just can’t wait for that call, hmm

So you stand on the corner in your New English clothesAnd you look so polished from your hair down to your toesOh, but still your fingers gonna pick your nose after all, hmm

But Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandCaptain Jack will get you by tonightJust a little push, and you’ll be smilin’, ohOh, yeah-yeah

So you decide to take a holidayYou got your tape deck and your brand-new ChevroletAh, there ain’t no place to go anywayWhat for? Hmm

So you got everything, ah, but nothing’s coolThey just found your father in the swimming poolAnd you guess you won’t be going back to school anymore

But Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandOh, Captain Jack will get you by tonightJust a little push and you’ll be smilin’, oh yeah

So you play your albums, and you smoke your potAnd you meet your girlfriend in the parking lotOh, but still you’re aching for the things you haven’t gotWhat went wrong? Hmm

And if you can’t understand why your world is so deadWhy you’ve got to keep in style and feed your headWell, you’re 21 and still your mother makes your bedAnd that’s too long, whoa, yeah-yeah

But Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandWell, now Captain Jack will get you by tonightJust a little push and you’ll be smilin’

Oh, Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandWell, now Captain Jack will make you to high tonightJust a little push and you’ll be smilin’

Yeah, Captain Jack will get you high tonightAnd take you to your special islandCaptain Jack will get you by tonightWell, now Captain Jack will make you to high tonight

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

45 thoughts on “Billy Joel – Captain Jack”

  2. Interesting song. I had this album on cassette. I’m not his biggest fan either, but there’s no denying his musical talent. One of my favorite songs of his is “The Entertainer”, which you hardly ever hear, whereas “Piano Man” has been run into the ground. When “Piano Man” came out I pictured him as much older and world-weary, until I saw him on TV. I’m no expert on his catalog, but I think An Innocent Man is his best album. Maybe because he was trying on all those 60’s song styles.

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    1. I do like a lot of his stuff…but I’m picky about them. My favorite is Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.
      I do like when he was into that 60s thing…John Mellencamp was as well around the same time…just a little more rocky.

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  3. Haven’t heard this song in a long time. First album I bought was The Stranger. So the only way I would have heard this is on radio or at a friend’s place. Didn’t know any of that story at all but the lyrics are a good narrative.

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  6. Pingback: Billy Joel – Captain Jack – MobsterTiger

  8. Like you, I was never a big fan. But I had two friends who were going through bad breakups at the same time. They were living in the same house and one of them wrote on the bathroom wall “Yes, they’re sharing a drink they call loneliness
    But it’s better than drinkin’ alone.”
    I understood them clearly when I read that.

    Captain Jack is seriously bleak. Maybe it’s a good thing those friends listened to The Piano Man instead.

    BTW I’ve never seen tie-dye jeans. That would be hard to do.

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    1. Yea this one wasn’t one to perk you up. I’ve never heard Joel lyrics this bleak before really. When I went through breakups…I listened to the Temptations…it seems like every other song they did was about breaking up.
      Yea me either on the tie-dye jeans…

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    2. I remember in the late 60’s/early 70’s, my brother buying a brand new pair of jeans and strategically pouring bleach on them and then washing them. Not exactly tie-dye, but close enough.

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      1. Ah, yes. I remember the bleached jeans fad. Pouring bleach directly on fabric does not lead to long life…but then you get strategically-worn jeans to meet another fad for folks who couldn’t wait to just wear out their clothes like normal people.

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  9. Excellent song, you even taught me something…I didn’t know this hadn’t been on one of his first couple of albums originally. ‘Songs in the Attic’ is great for an album that was basically ‘throwaways’ meant to buy time between ‘real’ albums. This and ‘Goodbye to Hollywood’ (a rare track where the live version far out does the studio) were the real highlights

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    1. Dave….I had no clue this song was so important to his career. The listeners really called in and made it happen and spured Columbia on to sign him.
      I used to listen to it when I got that album…I always liked it.

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  10. I grabbed this record when it came out. This song still sounds pretty good. Some other good cuts on the record. CJ used to get airplay on the FM stations back when they played off the track music. I’m pretty sure I heard this before Piano Man (I like that one also). This song has a different vibe from his later songs.

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    1. Yes it does have a different vibe. Even when I was a kid listening to it I thought…yea this is different than what is playing on the radio by him. You might have heard the Philly version that got around back then. It is fantastic.

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      2. Yea I’ve heard that one before…and yea I thought so.
        I just never thought of Billy Joel as “underground” but yea he was at that time. It got him on a major label. I never knew until I wrote this.

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    2. (CB, I’m a sucker for a good story song too. So long as it ain’t one of those preachy ‘come to Jesusesy’ message numbers or a Goldsboro style schmaltz-fest I’m all for following the journey and the story the singer’s telling.)

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      1. ‘Schmaltz-fest” now there’s an idea for Max.
        I caught Joe Ely (Town Pump) years ago. He sang his song about Billy the Kid. In his pre-song rap he said that from all his research on the Kid he came to a conclusion he was a chicken shit. I love the alternative stories.

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  12. While I wouldn’t call myself an all-out fan, I’ve liked a good number of Billy Joel songs for many years and got to see him with my wife at New York’s Madison Square Garden in the early 2000s. I have pretty favorable memories of that show. The audience was very engaged, seemingly knowing all the lyrics of each song the piano man performed that night.

    I’m pretty sure “Captain Jack” was part of the set. In any case, it’s among Joel’s songs I’ve liked for many years. My two favorites are “Allentown” and “New York State of Mind.”

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    1. I do wish I could have seen him. I know people who like Billy Joel like you and I like The Beatles…so I hope people don’t think I don’t like him…I do but I’m selective.
      I do like Allentown and I like Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.

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    1. Graham, I meant to link your post to this…sorry about that. I thought about it after it published.
      Yea there are some clinkers but the style was so different than his later songs.

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  14. Yes, this post made me think a little. His ‘uptown’ style was nice and happy but he hits harder being dark and broody as in this one, and the “not as poppy and bouncy as it sounds if you just hum it’ ‘Allentown.’ There is a touch of clinical depression to a few lines in a few songs of his. ‘(At least he can polish the fenders?’)

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    1. I with you on this one. I’ve heard it since I was a kid but never really looked at the lyrics when I was younger. This is not the Billy we come to know completely…yes in Allentown he gets serious but with that melody it’s easy to miss…in this one…it’s a bullseye.

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  15. I only have one album of Bill’s and that’s Glass Houses. What a great record. I watched that HBO doc which was very well done.

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  16. Max, the song that was a real breakthrough for Billy Joel’s career was “Just the Way You Are”. When that song was first played on the radio, people went crazy calling in to radio station demanding that it be played. Billy had a monster hit with “Just the Way You Are”. World tours followed and he won Grammy’s for it. I don’t think anyone can say that about “Captain Jack”.

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    1. I agree that put him in the superstardom class..no arguments from me…it was huge… but this one was 5 years earlier and most importantly it led him signing with Columbia because of the interest this song brought. Just The Way You Are was on The Stranger right? That is why I said this was one of the most important songs of his career. It got him off that terrible label…but certainly not the most popular….I would even say this is more of an album track… so yes this was a breakthrough to get a big label record deal with Piano Man and his career really started from there…and yes…Just The Way You Are was his ticket to super stardom. Nancy maybe I worded it wrong in the post.

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      2. Thank you, Nancy for listening. I never thought about it that way because I was just thinking his first big album. So I guess it was two different kind of breakthroughs. Have a good week Nancy and I’ll talk to you again Friday.!

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