CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY (1975)
Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
Captain Fantastic, raised and regimented
Hardly a hero,
Just someone his mother might know,
Very clearly a case for corn flakes and classics,
"Two teas both with sugar please."
In the back of an alley.
While little Dirt Cowboys turned brown in their saddles
Sweet chocolate biscuits,
And red rosy apples in summer.
For it's hay make
And "Hey mom, do the papers say anything good.
Are there chances in life for little Dirt Cowboys,
Should I make my way out of my home in the woods?"
Brown Dirt Cowboy
Still green and growing.
City slick Captain,
Fantastic the feedback
The honey the hive could be holding.
For there's weak winged young sparrows
That starve in the winter,
Broken young children
On the wheels of the winners.
And the sixty-eight summer festival wallflowers
Are thinning.
For cheap easy meals
Are hardly a home on the range.
Too hot for the band
With a desperate desire for change.
We've thrown in the towel too many times
Out for the count when we're down.
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
From the end of the world to your town.
And all this talk of Jesus
Coming back to see us
Couldn't fool us.
For we were spinning out our lines
Walking on the wire,
Hand in hand went music and the rhyme,
The Captain and the Kid
Stepping in the ring,
From here on sonny
It's a long and lonely climb.
Tower Of Babel
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
Snow,
Cement,
And ivory young towers,
Someone called us Babylon
Those hungry hunters
Tracking down the hours.
But where were all your shoulders when we cried,
Were the darlings on the sideline
Dreaming up such cherished lies,
To whisper in your ear before you die.
It's party time for the guys in the tower of Babel.
Sodom meet Gomorrah,
Cain meet Abel.
Have a ball ya'all
See the letches crawl
With the call girls under the table.
Watch ‘em dig their graves,
`Cause Jesus don't save the guys
In the tower of Babel.
Junk,
Angel,
This closet's always stacked.
The dealers in the basement
Filling your prescription,
For a brand new heart attack.
But where were all your shoulders when we cried,
Were the doctors in attendance
Saying how they felt sick inside.
Or was it just the scalpel blade that lied.
Bitter Fingers
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
“I'm going on the circuit
I'm doing all the clubs,
And I really need a song boys
To stir those workers up,
And get their wives to sing it with me
Just like in the pubs.
When I worked the good old pubs in Stepney.”
“Oh could you knock a line or two
Together for a friend?
Sentimental, tear inducing with a happy end.
And we need a tune to open
Our summer season at Southend.
Can you help us?”
It's hard to write a song with bitter fingers,
So much to prove, so few to tell you why,
Those old die-hards in Denmark Street start laughing
At the keyboard player's hollow haunted eyes.
It seems to me a change is really needed
I'm sick of tra la las and la de das.
No more long days hacking hunks of garbage
Bitter fingers never swung on swinging stars.
I like the warm blue flame
The hazy heat it brings,
It loosens up the muscles
And forces you to sing.
You know it's just another hit and run
From the tin pan alley twins.
“And there's a chance that one day
You might write a standard lads.
So churn ‘em out thick and fast
And we'll still pat your backs.
`Cause we need what we can get
To launch another dozen acts.
Are you working?”
Tell Me When The Whistle Blows
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
There's a dusty old gutter he's lying in now,
He's blind and he's old
And there's a bottle that rolls down the road.
Me I'm young and I'm so wild,
And I still feel the need of your apron strings once in awhile.
For there's taxi cabs hootin’
But I can't be foot loose forever.
My suitcase it's a cheap one
My darlin’ she's a dear one,
My head's feelin’ light as a feather.
Take my ears and tell me when the whistle blows.
Wake me up and tell me when the whistle blows.
Long lost and lonely boy
You're just a black sheep going home.
I want to feel your wheels of steel
Underneath my itchin’ heels.
Take my money
Tell me when the whistle blows.
Part of me asked the young man for the time,
With a cool vacant stare of undue concern
He said “Nine.”
It's not so bad but I really do love the land,
And rather all this than those diamante lovers
In Hyde Park holding hands.
Blowing heat through my fingers
Trying to kill off this cold.
Will the street kids remember
Can I still shoot a fast cue,
Has this country kid still got his soul.
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
When I think of those East End lights,
Muggy nights
The curtains drawn in the little room downstairs.
Prima Donna lord you really should have been there,
Sitting like a princess perched in her electric chair.
And it's one more beer,
And I don't hear you anymore.
We've all gone crazy lately,
My friends out there rolling round the basement floor.
And someone saved my life tonight, sugar bear.
You almost had your hooks in me didn't you dear.
You nearly had me roped and tied,
Altar-bound, hypnotized,
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You're a butterfly,
And butterflys are free to fly,
Fly away, high away bye bye.
I never realised the passing hours
Of evening showers,
A slip noose hanging in my darkest dreams.
I'm strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating queen.
It's four o'clock in the morning
Damn it!
Listen to me good.
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
Saved in time, thank God my music's still alive.
And I would have walked head on into the deep end of the river,
Clinging to your stocks and bonds
Paying your H.P. demands forever.
They're coming in the morning with a truck to take me home,
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight,
Someone saved my life tonight, someone saved my life tonight,
Someone saved my life tonight.
So save your strength and run the field you play alone.
(Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
I can hound you if I need to
Sip your brandy from a crystal shoe
In the corner, in the corner.
While others climb reaching dizzy heights,
The world's in front of me in black and white,
I'm on the bottom line, I'm on the bottom line.
I'd have a cardiac if I had such luck.
Lucky losers, lucky losers landing on skid row,
Landing on skid row.
While the Diamond Jims
And the Kings Road pimps
Breath heavy in their brand new clothes.
I'm on the bottom line, I'm on the bottom line.
And I gotta get a meal ticket
To survive you need a meal ticket,
To stay alive you need a meal ticket.
Feel no pain, no pain
No regret, no regret.
When the line's been signed
You're someone else.
Do yourself a favor and the meal ticket does the rest.
Shake a hand if you have to
Trust in us and we will love you
Anyway, anyway.
Don't leave us stranded in the jungle
With fifty percent that's hard to handle,
Ain't that so, ain't that so.
Better Off Dead
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
There was a face on a hoarding
That someone had drawn on,
And just enough time for the night to pass by without warning.
Away in the distance there's a blue flashing light
Someone's in trouble somewhere tonight.
As the flickering neon stands ready to fuse
The wind blows away all of yesterday's news.
Well they've locked up their daughters
And battened the hatches.
They always could find us but they never could catch us.
Through the grease streaked window
Of an all night cafe
We watched the arrested get taken away.
And that cigarette haze has ecology beat
As the whores and the drunks filed in from the street.
'Cause the steam’s in the boiler the coal’s in the fire
If you ask how I am then I'll just say inspired.
If the thorn of a rose is the thorn in your side
Then you're better off dead if you haven't yet died.
Writing
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
Is there anything left?
Maybe steak and eggs.
Waking up to washing up,
Making up your bed.
Lazy days, my razor blade
Could use a better edge.
It's enough to make you laugh
Relax in a nice cool bath.
Inspiration for navigation
Of our new found craft.
I know you and you know me
It's always half and half.
And we were oh oh, so you know
Not the kind to doddle,
Will the things we wrote today
Sound as good tomorrow.
We will still be writing?
In approaching years,
Stifling yawns on Sundays
As the weekends disappear.
We could stretch our legs if we'd half a mind
But don't disturb us if you hear us trying,
To instigate the structure of another line or two.
Cause writin's lightin’ up
And I like life enough to see it through.
We All Fall In Love Sometimes
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
Wise men say
It looks like rain today.
It crackled on the speakers
And trickled down the sleepy subway trains.
For heavy eyes could hardly hold us,
Aching legs that often told us
It's all worth it
We all fall in love sometimes.
The full moon's bright
And starlight filled the evening.
We wrote it and I played it,
Something happened it's so strange this feeling.
Naive notions that were childish
Simple tunes that tried to hide it,
But when it comes
We all fall in love sometimes.
Did we, didn't we, should we couldn't we
I'm not sure ‘cause sometimes we're so blind.
Struggling through the day
When even your best friend says,
Don't you find
We all fall in love sometimes.
And only passing time
Could kill the boredom we acquired
Running with the losers for awhile.
But our Empty Sky was filled with laughter
Just before the flood,
Painting worried faces with a smile.
Curtains
(Elton John/Bernie Taupin)
I used to know this old scarecrow
He was my song
My joy and sorrow,
Cast alone between the furrows
Of a field no longer sown by anyone.
I held a dandelion
That said the time had come
To leave upon the wind
Not to return,
When summer burned the earth again.
Cultivate the freshest flower
This garden ever grew,
Beneath these branches
I once wrote such childish words for you.
But that's okay.
There's treasure children always seek to find,
And just like us
You must have had
A Once Upon A Time.
Dogs In The Kitchen
(Bernie Taupin)
All our innocence gave way to lust
As the peacock spreads its fan,
And they taught us how to crack the whip
While the businessmen got tanned.
In the months that passed by the agents cried
And the flunkeys all got paid,
While the fortune seekers pale limp wrists
Showered us with bright bouquets.
Like soldiers on the road to battle
Poor boys fight to stay alive,
Take a roller coaster or the wheel of fortune
Just be sure that you can land it on the other side.
Uncage us where restless, snarled the dogs in the kitchen.
Howling in the heatwave, riding all the bitchin' ladies.
Who got the first bite on the greasy bone, take my advice kid
Tear off the white meat, leave them the fat back at home.
Empty eyed souls with expense accounts
Take a luncheon eating humble pie.
While the vultures belch in their swivel chairs
And the vampires all wear ties.
From the lips of a sweet young starlet
Amber eyes and sex appeal,
Or a swan song sung by some finger snapping kid
In a cummerbund and Cuban heels.
Though the team survived the glass house cracked
And the martyrs all got stoned
But a friend outside slipped a file in
While the jailer slept at home.