Featured Unknown/Underrated Song: "Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy" by Elton John

In 1975, Elton John recorded the top album of his career, and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" became one of his biggest hits.  Overlooked on that album was this song.  It was never released as a single, but should have been. "Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy" is an autobiographical account of the early years that Elton and Bernie Taupin struggled just to eat and survive:

Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy

Elton John

Lyrics by Bernie Taupin, Music by Elton John

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 and 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 and 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 sonny sonny, it's a long and lonely climb