RIP Jimmy Buffett

There is speculation among the Parrotheads that Bubbles Up, which Radio Margaritaville started playing this weekend, is essentially a goodbye message.

But he’s had a number of songs that nod toward his passing, like Lovely Cruise and One Particular Harbor, so it may just be coincidence.

 

Did he get the A1 treatment anywhere? (Edit: Found it on NYT, LAT, WaPo … any besides that?)

Also, both the NYT and WaPo fashion editors wrote about how Jimmy influenced style. And in favorable terms!

 

Well, seeing as how those songs were recorded 30 years ago, I’m gonna guess not

 

not his literal death that just happened, his mortality. for someone known for his tequila and burger songs it comes up a lot in his work. so maybe the new song was a message, or maybe he would have written it regardless his health.

 

USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park is thankful to have received a generous donation of two aircraft made by the legendary singer and Mobile native, Jimmy Buffett.

When the aircraft first arrived at the park, in 2022, Buffett wished to remain an anonymous donor. As the world mourns his passing, we are pleased to finally be able to share his generous contributions to the park.

The Grumman Goose and Boeing Stearman are both on display in the Medal of Honor Aircraft Pavilion. Visitors will see a wreath and an iconic Hawaiian-styled shirt that has been placed by the Grumman Goose in honor of Buffett.


https://www.al.com/life/2023/09/jim...anes-to-mobiles-battleship-memorial-park.html

 

One of my greatest friends and former colleagues - as fine a human, “boss,” dad as there is - is the biggest Buffett fan I know. He has seen, I would guess, 70-plus shows, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t know exactly how many, because he’s an accumulator of experiences, not stats.

Even though he lives 20 minutes from me, we don’t see each other in person all that much. Friday night, I went to his place for a few beers and to catch up. On my drive home, the three FM stations I have programmed had trash, so I switched to AM (Fox News, in fact … for grins). First thing I hear is breaking news that Jimmy Buffett died.

So, I pulled over and texted my friend. Not a text I enjoyed sending.

I went to a few Buffett shows. One was as close to spur-of-the-moment as possible, when my clock-radio alarm kicked in on a Buffett song the morning that he was playing an outdoor show 3 ½ hours away. I took that as a sign I had to go. I worked for a p.m. then, so, once deadline passed, I took to the road. Got floor seats pretty close to the stage.

My first job out of college (in a non-journalism field), after I received my first paycheck, I bought about four Buffett albums. I knew before I started that job that it wasn’t for me, and that’s probably at least partly why I would never listen to Buffett if I was driving to work … didn’t want to become overly influenced by the music and have wistful thoughts of, “What if I decided not to go in today?”

As much as I like the light-hearted stuff (Margaritaville, Cheeseburger, etc.), the songs that really resonate are the storytelling songs. A lot of them, of course, have enough of a tinge of reality to prompt reflection that, to me at least, borders on sadness. As one of the NYT stories wrote: “He has grappled with dark thoughts about time and existence. He saw from the stage that we had, too. So he gave language to it.”

I was never the most boisterous Buffett fan, maybe because in part my likings tended toward “Pirate Looks at Forty” (my ID ringtone on my wife’s phone) over “Get Drunk.” But Buffett’s death, about 16 months after the death of one of my favorite writers/athletes, and two weeks after a bittersweet college fraternity reunion that prompted considerable second-guessing about my life path, is like mortality barging through the bedroom door and setting my house as his forwarding address.

It's not the same, but I think I know a little how William Nack felt when he learned that Secretariat died.

 

1. It’s too early in the morning for me to take in a sentiment so true to my own life that I’d never articulated. There are just certain songs that have so good perspective that they could ruin your actual life if you followed their advice.

2. I’m going to go out on a limb, that if you lived your life with even a modicum of the thoughtfulness of this post, that you’ve done pretty well with your time on this earth. If nothing else, you’ve made me care about Jimmy Buffett and his fans, as this thread has done. I had no opinions about the man before his death and this thread has been a window into a subculture and how art really does make a difference in lives.

 

Watching some clips from the Gulf Shores benefit concert he did after the BP oil rig explosion - some great stuff in that show if you want to see Buffett at the top of his form. He never took himself or his music too seriously, but when it comes to humanitarian causes and philanthropy, they guy was right there with Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. Probably should have receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Kennedy Center Honors- and I'm fairly certain he's sold more albums than anyone who never scored a no. 1 song or album. Weird career - big open in the 70s - pretty quiet '80s and than at another level in the 90s and beyond.

 

Oldest Surfer on the Beach ...

 

All right, it’s story time.

This would have been 8 or so years ago, when I was the lead sports desker at a small newspaper in the Rocky Mountains.

It was a Friday night, and it was not a good Friday night. It was a Friday night when the prep writer blew his budget for for both time and story length, so we missed deadline, and it was made clear to me that it was my fault for not being prepared for both eventualities.

So I’m driving home late at night and still pissed off, and what comes on my car stereo? This:

Now what would they do if I just sailed away?
Who the hell really compelled me to leave today?
Runnin' low on stories of what made it a ball
What would they do if I made no landfall?​

I almost drove off the road.

It summed up how I felt about my job, my career and my personal history … all in the opening verse of Jimmy Buffett’s “Landfall.”

What would they have done if I’d just sailed away? I still wonder.