by Mike Werling
Late on the first day of September, one headline dominated the the Coconut Telegraph rumor mill in Key West: Margaritaville Mayor-for-Life Jimmy Buffett Has Died.
Parrot Heads were stunned. We didn’t want to believe it. Couldn’t believe it. But as the reality set in, we knew what to do…
Fire up the blenders. Dust off the flip-flops. Don the tropical print shirt your wife only lets you wear to shows. Cue the music marathon. Play the songs. All of the damn songs.
On comes “He Went to Paris”
Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all the way
Man, those words hit differently with the too-fresh news of Jimmy’s death. Raw. They always meant what they meant, but they always meant it about somebody else. Somebody real probably, but not Jimmy. They were definitely about somebody else. Until they weren’t.
Gone.
Like the captain in “The Captain and the Kid.” Like the small town in “Ringling, Ringling.” Like the protagonist looking for answers in “He Went to Paris.” Like all of the pirates Jimmy wished he could have been if only he hadn’t been born centuries too late. Like the Key West that Jerry Jeff Walker drove him to more than half a century ago.
Gone.
Not possible, right? Well, he never promised immortality. He just promised to be our tour guide to the good life, and how to live it to the fullest. Under the often upbeat veneer, the island vibes and the booze-soaked anthems, mortality was always there, in the background. Until it wasn’t.
You don’t have to grow up, he told us, but you do have to get older. You can’t live forever, he said, but you can have a hell of a lot more fun if you “die while you’re living” rather than “live while you’re dead.” You are subject to a finite timeline here on Earth, but you have nearly infinite ways to make it work for you.
Buffett has always had a yin and a yang to him, but with less mysticism and more tequila. That’s what I took away during my early days of listening to him. Life? Yes. Sucks? At times. There’s a counterweight to it all, though. Can you stop life from sucking? Not all of the time, no. But do you have to let it bother you? Absolutely not.
Have a great time when and where you can. Have some fun, dammit. In fact, according to his sister Lucy, those were Jimmy’s final words to her: “Have fun.” As he lay dying, he made sure others knew the key to getting through this life.
My first Buffett concert experience was in 1995. Standing on the sloped lawn of Sandstone Amphitheater in Bonner Springs, Kansas with hundreds of my new best friends. I was immediately hooked. That show was shortly after rock legend and Deadhead patriarch Jerry Garcia had died. Jimmy and the Coral Reefers performed “Uncle John’s Band” in his honor.
I met my wife, Dawn, at a Buffett show in 1999. Actually, it was on the drive to a show. Given the importance of the pre-show activities for Parrot Heads, that might be the better story. Road trip!
It was a show at Riverbend Amphitheater in Cincinnati. Oddly, that inland city was the launchpad for the Parrot Head movement – well, the name, anyway. The attitude was already strong. Maybe not so odd though, considering that’s where “she” came down from in the concert-crowd favorite “Fins.”
My Margaritaville tattoo — my constant reminder to have fun — was already a few years old by then.
So, yeah, I’m a fan. She’s a fan. We’re fans. I saw him perform in Virginia, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nevada, Colorado and California over the course of more than 20 years. All four continental U.S. time zones. But time was never of much consequence in Margaritaville. Until it was.
Maybe we’re not the kind of fans who go to multiple shows every summer — we lament that our last show was a few years ago — but definitely the kind who indulge in extensive tailgating sessions.
We are definitely the kind of fans who watch live streams of shows while sitting on their back patio with drinks in hand. We are the kind of fans who don’t need a reason to listen to Buffett songs on any given day.
We are the kind of fans who appreciate the lesser-known cuts, songs whose heartfelt, diligently crafted stories make them endlessly listenable, deeply felt. “The Wino and I Know.” “Life Is Just a Tire Swing.” “Migration.” “The Ballad of Spider John.” “God’s Own Drunk.” “Peanut Butter Conspiracy.” And, in a gut punch that’s gonna hurt for a bit, “Death of an Unpopular Poet.” Though Jimmy was anything but unpopular.
Buffett was definitely for us, but not for everybody. It’s impossible to please all the people. Some just can’t get past “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” thinking that’s probably the character of all his lyrics, vibe, and attitude. Sad for them. Most of his best stuff – the deep stuff – had more layers than a Royale with cheese.
His depth hid itself behind a beach-bum persona — later converted to surf bum — that belied his constant drive. He created fully fleshed-out characters in the space of a few lines. Spider John was “old and bent and devil sent, runnin’ out of time, when I long ago held a royal flush in my hand.” The ice cream man “walks down the street shufflin’ his feet to a rhythm that only he knows.”
I don’t need to run down a bunch of lyrics to prove my point. I just want to celebrate the guy who brought me so much pleasure and a little pain (tattoos hurt) and give him some of the credit he rightfully deserves. It’s the songs, man.
These lines from “One Particular Harbor” landed hard on Saturday:
Most mysterious calling harbor
So far but yet so near
I can see the day when my hair’s full gray
And I finally disappear
So, too, did this lament from “Trying to Reason With the Hurricane Season”
And now I must confess
I could use some rest
I can’t run at this pace very long
You ran at that pace for a long damn time, Jimmy. Longer than you probably had to. And you did it for Parrot Heads everywhere, people like me. Now, it’s up to us to sail on with just the music. We are mayor-less in Margaritaville. Fortunately, you left us some easy-to-follow advice on 2006’s Take the Weather with You: “Breathe in, breathe out, move on.”
