The Comedy of Errors: Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band - Circumstances (9 May 1992)

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Circumstances is taken from Beefheart and The Magic Band’s 1972 album Clear Spot on Reprise Records.  In fact it’s so 1972 it almost hurts, and what I mean by that is my first reaction in listening to it again since hearing it on the file for this show was, “Blimey, that’s well produced!”  This can be a criticism and certainly has been used by writers to damn plenty of pre-Ramones US albums made between 1971-75.  A while back, I submerged myself in twelve albums from that period to see whether the contempt for smooth production from that period was justified.  But at the time, Don Van Vliet didn’t give a damn about whether a smooth sheen would damage his music, he wanted commercial success and hooked the Magic Band up with producer, Ted Templeman, who had previously produced The Doobie Brothers (albeit well in advance of What a Fool Believes).

In the event it worked a treat.  Beefheart’s voice was always a force of nature and Templeman, who shared the producer’s chair with Van Vliet, wisely keeps it front and centre throughout the four short movements that make up the track, allowing an acapella opening for some of them.  With the superb playing of The Magic Band around him as well as his own harmonica driving things on, the standout line for me in this track about the quirks of fate is:

Now the sun can sunburn you
But not as bad
As those old people do.

which, at the risk of being cliched, is as pertinent today - with Brexit imminent and Trump in the White House - as it felt in 1972 with the US Establishment finally seeming to have subdued the youth revolutions from 1967 onwards, never more exemplified than with Richard Nixon returned to the presidency in that year’s election.

For Peel, the 9/5/92 show gave him a chance to play the two musicians he regarded as geniuses on the same night.  Van Vliet was his absolute favourite just ahead of Mark E. Smith, though he described both in this show as being “in the front rank of popular music”.

Video courtesy of Revanlation.
Lyrics copyright of Don Van Vliet.