It is considered by some to be the most important and pivotal of his early compositions because his performance of the song at an April 15, 1972, live radio concert at Sigma Studios on WMMR in Philadelphia, and the subsequent airplay this live version received on the station brought him to the attention of major record labels, including Columbia, with which he would sign a recording contract in 1973.
Joel wrote "Captain Jack" in late 1971,[2][3] while sitting in his apartment in Oyster Bay, Long Island, looking out the window, trying to find inspiration for a song.
[6] One of the people who noticed and liked the LP was the music director of Philadelphia radio station WMMR-FM, Dennis Wilen.
[7] On Saturday night, April 15, 1972, Joel performed an hour-long concert in front of these contest winners at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia.
Some of the songs were later recorded for the Piano Man LP, including "The Ballad of Billy the Kid", "Travelin' Prayer", and "Captain Jack".
[12] "Captain Jack" was one of the 10 songs recorded in Los Angeles for Joel's Columbia debut, Piano Man.
[14] Ira Mayer called it Joel's "signature piece,"[15] and Stephen Holden said the song, a "centerpiece" of the album, "compelled attention for [its] despairing portraits of urban fringe life, despite [the] underlying shallowness.
[17] Author Hank Bordowitz called "Captain Jack" "as bleak a portrait of growing up in the affluent suburbs as anything before L.A. punk hit nearly a decade later".
"[19] Ron Rosenbaum of Slate, in a very negative review of Joel's work, criticized "Captain Jack," summarizing the song as, "Loser dresses up in poseur clothes and masturbates and shoots up heroin and is an all-around phony in the eyes of the songwriter who is so, so superior to him.
"[20] Joel made his first television appearance in the wake of the release of Piano Man, on the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert program, in a performance recorded live in Chicago in March 1974.
Joel wrote, "'Captain Jack' plays with much more power and conviction when a roaring Philadelphia audience sets off a kind of internal explosion and the adrenaline screams through our veins ...
According to an NPR report on worst campaign songs, a staffer notes that the playing of "Captain Jack" was a mistake.
[24] Her presumed opponent, Rudolph Giuliani, who ended up not running for the Senate, criticized the song's use because of its alleged glorification of drugs.
[26] In a 2019 interview marking his 70th birthday, Joel commented on why he rarely plays the song anymore: "He didn’t age well.