A Carrot is as Close as a Rabbit gets to a Diamond

So said Captain Beefheart, who died this week in Los Angeles at the age of 69, from complications in relation to multiple sclerosis.

An artistic visionary, Don Van Vliet’s legacy has been well documented and I’m personally looking forward to the re-run of programs charting his process and appeal, especially the Anton Corbijn film Some YoYo Stuff.

But what I’d rather consider, as way of a tribute, is the manner of his artistry. An abstract expressionist painter for the last thirty years of his life he provided a visual accompaniment to his earlier abstract expressionist songs.

Finding beauty in the absurd, his style was influential but often overlooked as batty by the uninitiated. To listen to Captain Beefheart took effort on the part of the listener.

He lived amongst the cacti and the serpents of the Mojave Desert and wrote as if born with scissors for hands and a sword for a tongue. Using a blues-man’s limited palette he wrote unlimited ear piercing jazz. No pastel transitions, only sharp outlines and impasto colours.

But the beauty was in the lyric:

“She used me for an Ashtray heart” love stubbed out in its prime

“Tropical hot dog night, like two flamingos in a fruit fight” coloured the scene like Gauguin.

“Telephone Telephone, that plastic horned devil!” spoke the truth.

My Head is My Only House Unless It Rains, includes the lines “My arms are just two things in the way, until I can wrap them around you, you’ll see my shadow soon around you” and possibly has the only use of the word "hate" within a love song: “I hate the other people who hear me sing this song”

When I first heard that track in the early 70s, I refused to buy it till I was worthy and waited until my son was born in 1988. I could provide a link to Spotify for you all to check it out, but you should work for the right to listen to such a thing of beauty, go out and buy a copy of Clear Spot and you’ll be justly rewarded.

Get closer to that carrot, it’s what Don would have wanted.

The Gen's Martin McAloon