On Listenig to Trout Mask Replica

It is amazing how art can really and truly affect you. One benefit of my job is that I can listen to music all day doing it, and for the last week or so I've listened almost exclusively to Trout Mask Replica, Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's 1969 magnum opus. Trout Mask Replica invariably winds up on music critics' lists of the best rock albums of all time, and as a sucker for those lists it was only a matter of time before I bought a copy. At this point I don't remember if I had any expectations (although obviously the cover does lead one to certain conclusions), but learning of Frank Zappa's involvement did little to raise them. Listening to it for the first time quickly devloved into a chore. Blaring saxophones, shifting rhythms and odd time signatures -- not to mention Beefheart's, shall we say, nontraditional vocal approach -- made for quite a change from the traditional country and Southern rock I'd been listening to recently. So on the first listen I didn't get it.

But I kept at it. Obviously Beefheart designed Trout Mask Replica to be heard more than once, and its very opaqueness started to seem like a virtue. Plus I sometimes find myself revisiting works of art, culture or entertainment that do not work for me, but nevertheless have a large following. For the most part this has been unproductive (I've spent far too much of my life watching The Brady Bunch and Family Guy), but for whatever reason I could not stop listening to the record. And I still didn't get it.

Until I realized that the whole point of the album was to point out the fallacy of trying to "get" art. Trout Mask Replica indites the whole notion that artistic expression must adhere to the same logic that governs rational thought. What makes art work generally has roots outside the realm of logic, whether the artist consciously intends this or not. Beefheart deliberately draws from an extensive knowledge of different musical genres to create his dense melange, something that defies understanding but that nevertheless communicates with his audience.

And because of this work, I finally have an understanding of what modern artists of all stripes try to accomplish. To paraphrase von Clausewitz, art is continuation of communication by other means.