When I was 13, my boyfriend used to play this song to me,every night, over the phone, when it first came out. Needless to say, I eventually began to love the song. (can't say the same for the boyfriend). That turned out to be the best thing I got from that relationship. A love of Billy Joel!!!
You lost someone who didn’t deserve you while finding the greatest singer songwriter of all time on your way out! Wow what a perfect ending that was lol!
The brilliance of this song is in its structure. Billy explained to James Lipton in Inside the Actor's Studio that normally a guitar rhythm like that would be the melody, and it would be played in the treble. Billy instead used that guitar riff as an accompaniment, and played it instead in the bass. So it gives the effect that you can't really hear it, but then again, you can.
It’s so weird seeing him as such a young kid basically I mean just how he even knew how to put this together Such wisdom at such a young age Kinda makes you look in the mirror and be like WHY CANT YOU DO THAT It’s just words put together But therein lies the genius of a music icon They can figure out what’s right in front of all of us that we can’t even begin to touch or comprehend Man What a talent
Love this arrangement - Billy kicked it up a notch here with additional notes than in a concert I have from 1978, and from the studio version. Excellent live performance - but this is from tv not a concert.
Yeah, captain jack was a pretty well known guy on Long Island who would bring people off shore so they could get high without interference from cops and such. Interestingly, he just recently died. Nice man apparently.
+John Stadelmann I hope you are joking. Captain Jack is a slang term for Heroin. This song is about a guy that is a loser and takes out his woes by shooting dope. "Just a little push and you'll be smiling".
+Tim Waldron nope not kidding. I live here. I know it's a slang for heroin but the guy Billy Joel was talking about was a real person. Look up the real captain Jack, he died fairly recently.
+Tim Waldron www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=801 "This song is based on a real person: A drug dealer who lived near Joel in Oyster Bay, New York. But, as the singer explained in a 1975 interview with ZigZag, the character "Captain Jack" was a composite of different kinds of people. Said Joel: "I was just sitting around one day looking out of the window wondering what I was going to write about, and kinda wrote about what was going on outside. I mean, Long Island is a suburb and it was about a suburban type of character. There's a lot of frustration living in the suburbs - you don't have an identity as you would if you came from the city or the country, there's city music and there's country music, but there's really no suburban music, you kinda copy the city. You have both influences pulling on you."
I thought it was about Jack Daniels, but really it could be about any substance that "takes you to that special island", booze, heroin, whatever, it's all the same attempt at escape, no?
@ckmate1977 In a TV studio on a tv show called "Don Kishner's Rock Concert", a Midnight Special-esque program. This show was taped in Chicago I believe.
Thx for that. I was wondering. Drummer rushes the tempo at the first chorus and billy plays up the octave to try slowing him down a bit.... neat to see. Right at 1:33...
too bad those of us who love this song and video do not take the message seriously enough. its ok to do the things he describes in the song, but there is more and that is job, family, commitment, responsibility, love, selflessness, the golden rule. i know cause i did both, not just the captain. there is room in everyone for both chapters.
Captain Jack was a Heroin dealer across the street of Billy's apartment in Oyster Bay LI back in the early 70s. en.wikipedia/wiki/Captain_Jack_%28song%29
Funny as hell! The Doors got the shaft from Ed Sullivan for saying 'higher', and 5 odd years later you could sing a song on the TV with 'get you high' in every chorus but couldn't say 'masturbate'. That thought made my day, and yes, I'm high.
Could Captain Jack mean SMACK as in heroin I think so. Billy may have tried it once or twice at a party. It makes sense to me the lyrics are about heroin (Captain JACK= SMACK = heroin) Its ok BJ is not endorsing nor condoning use of heroin He is merely singing a song about it.
Billy wrote the song after observing the youth of long island getting into heroin. The kids were rich and already had their lives set for them for life. So they had nothing better to do than to become an addict. I believe that's how it went. The complete story is on wikipedia if I remember right.
thx dude you updated me on the origins of BJ's song. James Reyne ""Australian Crawl"" also has a song relalting to heroin Hammerhead= heroin addict, Hammer slang for heroin. Lou Reed doesnt bother being subtle , just plain Heroin.
so young so confident,his life has been so public,I'm guessing that money fame do not bring peace,pushing your god given talent to the next level.Just might?
I thought my comment was pretty damn funny. I can't help it if no one else has a sense of humor, but, quite frankly, I'm surprised at the lack of it in a crowd of Billy Joel fans.
Well it's the same with "The Entertainer" on Mike Douglas. He just went away from the microphone, probably because he knew that kids and other people were watching and he didn't want to blow it with that audience. It just sounds empty without the words in their places, unless you've never heard it before.
So because he says the word once in the song it means that's the subject? He's describing the character in the song, showing that he's a whiny loser who just sits around doing nothing all day, and that's why he's so upset that he thinks he needs drugs. Captain Jack, alongside Get Over It by The Eagles, is basically the original "first world problems" meme, just in song form.
If you go to Confession in a Catholic Church, the priest is not likely to say that "picking your nose" is a sin of impurity. (It's ok to pick your nose with a Kleenex.) It's not ok to jack off with anything, technically (Kleenex, lotion, whatever). But masturbation is definitely an offense against the dignity of the human body. It's better to spank yourself if that stops you from pulling a Trump and grabbing a woman/another person without consent, but yes, masturbation is a sin.
prt II ^^ - this song is about abuse of alcohol....but that seems to be ok...very strange...! No hating...I do love that song, thats why i was watching it...but its the first time I heard it with that small change...and i am sure it was not his idea!! coz he wrote it like that!! Free Arts ;)
