Track Listing

1. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
2. Tower Of Babel
3. Bitter Fingers
4. Tell Me When The Whistle Blows
5. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
6. (Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket
7. Better Off Dead
8. Writing
9. We All Fall In Love Sometimes
10. Curtains
11. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
12. One Day At A Time
13. Philadelphia Freedom

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19092 in Music
• Released on: 2004-11-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Hybrid SACD, Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .23 pounds
• Running time: 187 minutes

CD Description
One of Elton John's many 1970s pop gems, CAPTAIN FANTASTIC & THE DIRT BROWN COWBOY is a classic album filled with well-written, catchy tunes. The most famous song from this recordis the radio hit, "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". A bittertune about a badly entangled relationship, John's lyric rejoices in an 11th-hour triumph of freedom.
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC also features John's well-known version of the Lennon/McCartney favourite "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". John maintains the eccentric sonic elements of this tune, but makes itmore dramatic and operatic, particularly as the song's refrain loops on and on towards the ending. "Writing" is anotherhighlight on this disc; Latin-influenced, upbeat, and bubbly, this number contains some quirky bongo playing and a light, care-free lyric centred on the actual process of composing songs. Without a doubt, John and partner Bernie Taupin were one of the best songwriting duos in rock history, and manyof their finer collaborations are captured on this 1975 release.

Customer Reviews

A master piece just better
Unlike many Elton John fans I consider this album to the best of his along side Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. Maybe that is connected to the fact that this was the first LP I can remember putting on my dad's grammofon when I was tall enough to reach the buttons. From the age of 4 I put it on constantly. I made sure that I got the original poster and booklets from the album when my dad disgarded his LPs. By then I had the remastered CD. To this day I think it's one of the finest album I if did hear. But now at the age of 22 I have found a substitute for my much played CD.

Captain Fantastic in SACD!!!

There are so much more in this album yet and it is all reveiled in SACD. It becomes an even more emotional and sincere record. I thought that was impossible. The title track has always been a favourite of mine and like all the others it shines even more. Throughout the album the Davey Johnstone's guitars, mandolins, you name it, have been given a boost. Personally I think the piano is more subdued but still dominantly pronounced in the ballads.

What I like the most is the crystal clear sound and the backing vocals. There are so much more nuiances in the entire album. You can litterally hear that it is Lennon singing back vox in the chorus of Lucy'and Nigel, Dee and Davey's bakcing voxs are sounding more superb than ever. Really suberp, recording artists today could or have learned from these guys.

I wont bore you any more. Just go ahead and replace your CD but keep your LP for sentimental reason. This is the ultimate edition of a master piece.

A Fantastic Job Done!!!
Nobody reading this needs me to tell them what a great album this is. So let me just say that the surround SACD mix is superb. Greg Penny, who made his debut with the 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' SACD and is now halfway through the classic EJ catalogue, has got the new art of 5.1 mixing down to a fine art, subtle, varied, building and clever - but always working towards emphasizing the overall emotion of the tracks. I've waited ages for this particular album to get the treatment, and am delighted that such a good job has been done. The surround mix of 'Honky Chateau' is also incredibly successful, so I'm looking forward now to slowly replacing all of my 70s Elton John albums with these massively superior surround versions. Penny is working from the instruments that were on the original master tapes, so all that has really changed is the spatial arrangement of those instruments - and the increased resolution of the tracks, of course - so it is amazing to hear things that you had never heard in songs you've loved for decades. With so many artists mysteriously hesitating over getting in on the high-res surround sound revolution, I can only thank everyone involved with this Elton John series for getting their fingers out and making it happen.

Elton's Pinnacle
This is quite simply Elton John's finest work and it even puts Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in the shade. From the opening bars of the title track, you know you're in a for a treat and at no point does it disappoint, with Someone Saved My Life Tonight, Better Off Dead and We All Fall in Love Sometimes being absolute masterpieces of the John / Taupin partnership.

If you're experience of Elton John is mostly his newer stuff, then this album will take you're breath away. This was Elton John at the height of his powers and so good were his albums of this period that they carried him right through the last two decades which have been decidedly mediocre in comparison.

Captain Fantastic is one of those albums which stands the test of time - I've had it for over 20 years and still rate it as one the best albums in my collection and I play it frequently even now.

For that reason it truly deserves the five star average rating it gets on Amazon.