Help -Song about Bear????
Gary Graham
dances with a Bear - does anyone know the name and more importantly which
album it appears on?? Thanks.
Lucas Strom
It's a sacrilege that you don't already know the song, but I'll tell you
anyway. The song title is "God's Own Drunk". It can be found on two CD's.
You Had To Be There, and also on Livin' and Dyin' In 3/4 Time. The song
was originally done by Lord Buckley I believe. The bear's name is Buddy.
Buddy Bear.
Lucas
chase
'hal...@lex.infi.net (Gary Graham)' wrote:
>I remember I once heard a Buffett song about a guy who gets drunk and
>dances with a Bear - does anyone know the name and more importantly which
>album it appears on?? Thanks.
God's Own Drunk is on Living and Dying in 3/4 Time and the live version is
on You Had to Be There .... He got sued, had to stop playing it live,
chase squires
Mark Stough
one song.
Gil Harvey
--
Gil Harvey
gha...@foto.infi.net
Trying to Make Some Sense of it All !
Pat Poyner
On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, Gary Graham wrote:
> I remember I once heard a Buffett song about a guy who gets drunk and
> dances with a Bear - does anyone know the name and more importantly which
> album it appears on?? Thanks.
>
>
As a recent lurker to this newsgroup and a recent fan of Jimmy Buffett I
think I may be able to help on this one as I have the tape in front of me
(what a coincidence!).
Check out "God's Own Drunk" on Living and Dying in 3/4 Time. Last track
on the album. Jimmy gets drunk and has a run in w/a bear who steals his
brother's (?) still.
Great story. It's recorded live but I'm not sure where.
Hope that helped.
Patrick
Mark Stough
Chip
>Hope that helped.
>Patrick
I thing the song was written by Richard Buckley -- and Buffett got
sued for using it without permission, and doesn't play the song
anymore for that reason. This is the story I heard, and I think it
may be true, because he played the song several years ago in Atlanta.
He played the intro, and the whole crowd gasped. It was funny as
hell, because he stopped and said "I won't tell anybody if you won't,"
and the crowd, of course, went nuts...
- Chip
++++++++++++++++++
Atlanta Tar Heel Web Page
Keep up with all Atlanta area activities sponsored by
the Atlanta Chapters of the UNC Educational Foundation
and Carolina Club
http:/www.mindspring.com/~oneatl/
Tom Fraser
>
> hal...@lex.infi.net (Gary Graham) wrote:
> >I remember I once heard a Buffett song about a guy who gets drunk and
> >dances with a Bear - does anyone know the name and more importantly which
> >album it appears on?? Thanks.
>
> anyway. The song title is "God's Own Drunk". It can be found on two CD's.
> You Had To Be There, and also on Livin' and Dyin' In 3/4 Time. The song
> was originally done by Lord Buckley I believe. The bear's name is Buddy.
> Buddy Bear.
>
> Lucas
What was the deal about Buffet getting sued over that song? I heard some
guy was trying to sue him and then Jimmey stopped doing the song at his
concerts for a few years; then he started doing them again...with words
like "I won't tell if you won't!" as a preamble. I also remember one
concert (I have been to too many to remember which!) where Jimmy did a
song called "The Lawyer and The Asshole" in lieu of "God's Own Drunk".
It was a good song but I was disappointed not to hear about good old
Buddy Bear one more time...
One of you Parrot Heads out there must know this one!
TF
MikeVeh
It hung him up."
Michael K. Veh
"I'd rather die while I'm living that live while I'm dead."
-- J. Buffett
Lucas Strom
>Pat Poyner <pjpo...@acs.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>I thing the song was written by Richard Buckley -- and Buffett got
>sued for using it without permission, and doesn't play the song
>anymore for that reason. This is the story I heard, and I think it
>may be true, because he played the song several years ago in Atlanta.
>He played the intro, and the whole crowd gasped. It was funny as
>hell, because he stopped and said "I won't tell anybody if you won't,"
>and the crowd, of course, went nuts...
I don't think that the lawsuit thing is true. It might be, but I have
never heard anything about it, and three years ago he played it at
the second show he did in Houston. He didn't seem too secretive about
it. Oh, well. I don't think it's important. The song still kicks ass!!
Lucas
Brent Wheat
>
> cc...@atl.mindspring.com (Chip) wrote:
> >Pat Poyner <pjpo...@acs.ucalgary.ca> wrote:
> >I thing the song was written by Richard Buckley -- and Buffett got
> >sued for using it without permission, and doesn't play the song
I missed the first post but I am assuming that this refers to "God's own
Drunk" written by Richard Buckley AKA "Lord Buckley" as recorded on "You Had
to Be There", Jimmy's first live album. I am writing this from memory, so I
don't have current documentation at hand, but I remember reading where Jimmy
was sued several years ago by Buckleys HEIR'S for copyright infringement over
this song. Apparently it stems from the live album; the suit was settled for
undisclosed terms. It can be assumed that Jimmy is still free to use the
song as long as copyright notices are taken care of, but Bubba was so
disgusted by the entire mess that he doesn't want to play the song (or
doesn't want to pay the royalties on the song?!)
parr...@lnd.com
>I remember I once heard a Buffett song about a guy who gets drunk and
>dances with a Bear - does anyone know the name and more importantly which
>album it appears on?? Thanks.
God's on Drunk
Live You Had to Be There.
Sandy Anderson
Best,
Sandy (Grandmommie Parrothead)
Sandy Anderson
MikeVeh
although they don't mention "God's Own Drunk." He would have been 90
Saturday I believe they said.
Just a bit of additional info.
Rich Horn
to sing "God's Own Drunk". So he just played the music and the crowd
sang the song for him. That was my first Jimmy concert, and it certainly
left an impression.
I'm not sure who was suing him, but I'm fairly certain he mentioned that
there was some sort of legal action over the song.
Fins up!
Rich
MikeVeh
<rh...@unix.infoserve.net> writes:
>When I saw Jimmy in Seattle in 1986, he made reference to not being able
>to sing "God's Own Drunk". So he just played the music and the crowd
>sang the song for him. That was my first Jimmy concert, and it certainly
>left an impression.
At the first show I saw in 1982 he did a real bluesy version that was
fantastic!
Your Name
> When I saw Jimmy in Seattle in 1986, he made reference to not being able
> to sing "God's Own Drunk". So he just played the music and the crowd
> sang the song for him. That was my first Jimmy concert, and it certainly
> left an impression.
>
> I'm not sure who was suing him, but I'm fairly certain he mentioned that
> there was some sort of legal action over the song.
>
> Fins up!
>
> Rich
In the early 80's I saw a show at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles where
he did and extra special version and dedicated it to the son of Lord
Buckley, who was in the audience that night. And the next tour the lawsuit
was on...the guy objected to the colorful language or something...sounds
good on the stereo still.
Nels
Kevin
the legal battles. He did a hilarious improv entitled the Lawyer and =
the Asshole to the music of God's Own Drunk. =
you had to be there.
-- =
___________________________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kevin
adrift on or near the Gulf of Mexico
Destin, FL
k...@gnt.net
=B3indecision may or may not be my problem=B2
___________________________________________
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SailAway
Six years after White Sport Coat put Jimmy Buffett on the musical map, he still resides in his curious
hinterland, but he's moved it further south. On this radiant summer afternoon, Buffett's bar-hopping in the
Caribbean and taking on a glow that rivals the tropical sun. But his reverie is abruptly shattered by a chance
remark: "You know, Jimmy, you really oughta drink a lotta pineapple juice. It'll make your cum taste sweet."
The blonde, bronze, pigtailed woman who says that to famed Caribbean rake Jimmy Buffett almost falls off her
bar stool laughing as he blushes a pulsating scarlet through his tan. Joining in the merriment are assorted
loungers, loafers, aging hippies, and members of Buffett's band-the Coral Reefers-who are scattered around the
verandah of L'Entrepont, a harbor-side bar on St. Barthelemy island. Buffett, fighting to regain composure,
declines the pineapple juice advice and signals for another "greenie" (Caribbean for Heineken). In the
interest of various individuals' marital harmony, it should be noted that Buffett, 32, does not know the woman
in question, although she, like most members of this expatriate community of young Americans, takes a
proprietary interest in Jimmy. He is theirs-he used to run a little marijuana through the islands himself, and
he lives the life he portrays in his sun-drenched, saltwater-dappled songs of Caribbean romance and adventure.
And the local drug smugglers-Lord, they swear by the man and would no more make a run in their boats without
Buffett cassettes on board than set sail without a few cases of greenies. And now, through a curious
coincidence, Buffett has dropped anchor at St. Bart's, a muggler's haven. From L'Entrepont, I can see about
two dozen seaworthy vessels besides Buffett's own fifty foot ketch, Euphoria II. St. Bart's is a tiny,
splendid island. Its populace is packed with sunbaked Americans and European hippies with lots of money and no
visible means of support. They sit around all day at places like the topless and sometimes bottomless beach
over by the Hotel Jean Bart,drinking pineapple juice and greenies. At night they slip their boats out into the
opalescent waters to take care of business. No wonder Buffett is taking a break from recording his new album,
Volcano, at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat to rest and relax in St. Bart's. Ever since Jimmy tired
of Key West's growing commercialism and left there in 1977 for Aspen (subletting his house to Hunter
Thompson), he's been looking for a foothold in the Caribbean, and St. Bart's seems to be the ideal spot. When
I'd called him from New York about our meeting in Montserrat, he'd suggested this stopover. His directions
sounded simple enough: "Fly to St. Maarten and charter a boat or a plane to St. Bart's. Wait for me at Le
Select Bar." Still, I've been a little gun-shy of Buffett's sense of time and space since the first time I
didn't interview him. It was in 1972 in Austin, Texas. Buffett was playing solo at a little folksy joint
called Castle Creek and in those pre-platinum days he and I were on the same pay scale and social stratum. He
put on a brilliant show and I decided to give the boy a break and splash him across the pages of this
magazine. He peered at me through a haze of Lone Star beer and agreed to meet me the following afternoon. Five
years later, we finally got around to the interview.
Times have not changed. During his recent summer tour, we made an abortive attempt to meet in
Charlotte, North Carolina. I got there all right, only to discover that Buffett had mistaken Charlotte for
Charleston, W.Virginia. What I mean is, his song writing is a little sharper than his grasp of geography.
Still, I took him at his word this go-around and, after landing safely at St. Bart's grass airstrip, set off
for Le Select Bar. Le Select is a legendary bar in the Caribbean, a real crossroads for smugglers and other
exotic charlatans. It's a tawdry, open-air, whitewashed-stone joint with outhouses that would make a sewer rat
gag, but the clientele makes the place, I suppose. Naked hippie children crawl across the floor, hard-eyed
hippies whisper conspiratorially in English, French, and Spanish at the bar, dogs wander in and out. I settled
in for a series of beers and, after the regular huddled and decided I wasn't from Interpol, one of them
volunteered the information that Buffett might well be on the island. "Big party last night," one of them
whispered to me. "Everybody on the island was fucked up. Lots of acid. Buy you a greenie?" Four hours later, I
began to wonder whether Buffett had perhaps... forgotten he'd promised to meet me. I mean, a guy who claims
that his two major influences are pirate Jean Lafitte and Mitch Miller might have something else on his mind
other than meeting a reporter. "I enjoy this life as a jester/Seems to keep me moving around," Buffett sings
in "Stranded on a Sandbar," one of his new songs, and that's a pretty fair self-assessment. Much like Jerry
Jeff Walker (who first introduced Buffett to Key West and the Caribbean way of thought), he's a rambling,
good-timey troubadour who can also rock out when the spirit seizes him. His recent success seems both
accidental and incidental: a journalism major in college, a failed Nashville songwriter, a former reporter for
Billboard who writes witty unconventional songs. Any guy who's penned such minor classic's as "Why Don't We
Get Drunk (and Screw)" and "My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink and I Don't Love Jesus" is maybe operating with his
own particular vision of the universe. Two more greenies, I decided, and then I'm leaving. Head for the beach
by the Hotel Jean Bart for a couple of days, then fly back to New York and tell the boss, "Sorry, no story
there. Didn't work out." Unfortunately, my route to the beach takes me by L'Entrepont, and Buffett spying me,
flops off the verandah in his ragged cutoffs and T-shirt. "Hey, where have you been?" he asks solicitously as
he hugs me. "We saw your plane come in. Siddown. Have a drink. Man, have you ever seen anything like this? The
Coral Reefers are getting a tan for the first time in their lives!"
"Listen," says Buffett, "the album's going great. We'll go out to the boat after a while and listen to some
tapes. Russ Kunkel is drumming on it and he's perfect for the group. On Monday James Taylor's coming down to
do some vocals with me and he's bringing a couple of his brothers. How you been?" Beaming almost paternally,
he looks around the table at the Coral Reefer s, scatters a sheaf of greenbacks across the table and says,
"Lets go out to the boat." Buffett pads barefoot down to the quayside, where his rubber dingy is tied up. He
cranks up the outboard engine and we thread our way past anchored yachts in the lowering light and board
Euphoria II, a lovely, spotless craft. In the cabin, Buffett pops open fresh brews, puts on a cassette of
rough cuts from Volcano, and sits down beneath a framed picture of himself in the Oval Office with Carter and
Mondale. "That photo does wonders for customs inspectors," he says wryly, as "Survive" comes over the
speakers. "Eat your heart out Billy Joel!" he shouts. "Aw, I'm just kidding," he adds, although it is a
Joel-like piano song. "Survive," I say to him, is really a departure from previous Buffett songs, which tend
to gather themselves in two distinct camps: sensitive ballads or clever wordplays. That pattern was set with
his first ABC album, A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, which was one of the unheralded sensations of
1973, alternating ballads like "HeWent to Paris" with funny, goofball songs such as "Why Don't We Get Drunk."
"I know what you mean," Buffet agrees. "Hell, I sat down one day and listened to Billy Joel's 52nd Street. I
like Billy Joel, I think he's a good writer. But I just sat down and said to myself, 'Well, goddamn. I can do
one of those if I want to.' That really made me get off my ass and look seriously at this whole project. So
that's the way I made Volcano. I went back and listened to A White Sport Coat... and A1A, which was probably
my most popular album, and I just said, 'Shit, I can write a Billy Joel song.' " Volcano is a long way from
Buffett's first album - the 324 copy selling Down To Earth, released in 1970 by Barnaby Records (he didn't
care; Barnaby gave him a $500 to buy a new guitar). Another Barnaby album and a series of records on ABC
solidified his position in the early and mid-Seventies as the perfect composite of a rocking folkie: wittier
than John Prine or Steve Goodman, sunnier than Jerry Jeff Walker and hardier than the wimps (who know who they
are). He left a failed marriage in Nashville for the good life in Key West with Jerry Jeff (with whom he wrote
"Railroad Lady" on 1973's White Sport Coat, a song that became a country classic after Lefty Frizzell recorded
it). His commercial success was moderate, although his cult following was fanatic, and he soon drew exalted
admirers like James Taylor and the Eagles. The breakthrough year was 1977: Changes In Latitudes, Changes in
Attitudes sold platinum, "Margaritaville" went gold, Irving Azoff signed him to Front Line Management and he
toured with the Eagles; 1978's albums, Son of a Son of a Sailor and the live You Had To Be There sold well.
But Azoff himself guaranteed that Volcano will be "Buffett's biggest album ever. I'll be greatly surprised if
it's not Top Five."
"Volcano," the title song, comes on the boat's cassette deck and Buffett smiles at its Caribbean
cross-rhythms. "I'm really proud of this," he says, fetching more greenies from his tiny refrigerator.
"Actually, Keith [Sykes, a Coral Reefer] and I sort of wrote this together. The Reefers went down to a little
bar in Montserrat one night and heard this great 'woop-wop' band and told me about it. So I went to the bar,
the Cafe La Capitain- there are bars and then there are bars and this one is a classic. Was the woop-wop band
sound similar to reggae? "Oh no," he replies seriously. "Down in Montserrat they don't particularly like
astafarians. It's a misconception that all Caribbean music is reggae. Most of the down-island stuff is more
alypso, happy, good-time music. This band was more like a calypso kind of maranga. It had a guy who played a
long blow pipe and a banjo-uke player. The next day, I had about four working titles for the album, but none
of them really grabbed me, and I was wondering, 'What the fuck can I call this record?' Then I looked out the
window at the volcano [Montserrat has an active volcano] and I went ding! I'm gonna call the album Volcano. So
I said, 'Now we got to write a song called "Volcano" ' I went to the studio and Keith was fooling around,
playing a little Caribbean shuffle, that little da da da. He said, 'You know, they play everything in F down
here.' I said, 'Well, hell, why not? I've never written a song in F.' So we wrote it and I said, ' Well, hell,
let's go get the guys from the bar, we need the woop-wop sound to make it authentic.' I had already written
the chorus, 'I don't know where I'm a gonna go when the volcano blows.' So we got the woop-wop band to come in
and play and it was perfect. It just felt so goddamned natural." Buffett rewinds the tape and plays "Volcano"
again to make sure I catch the references to Three Mile Island and the Ayatollah. "You're serious, for once,"
I observe. "Hell, it wasn't planned," he assures me. "I had this nice melody and I wanted some clever lyrics.
What I do best is write catchy lyrics, and with Three Mile Island and everything else that's happening it just
worked out perfect. "When I played it back for the locals, they got off on it. Even the cook s at AIR came out
of the kitchen to listen, so I knew that I had hooked a little bit of authenticity. It was fun for once to
take some shots at real things like Three Mile Island."
He turns the volume up and we go out on deck to watch the moonrise, which apparently is a big deal with St.
Bartians. The pungent odor of marijuana wafts over the harbor and we can hear a Buffett tape blaring from a
nearby yacht. We stretch out on the teak deck and Jimmy takes a long toke on a joint. "Ahh," he says, "when
the moon comes up you're gonna hear this bay howl." Amazingly, when the china white moon rises, there are
wolflike howls emanating from the various boats. You can see distant hands cupped around glowing joints and
hear glasses clinking.
"Is this paradise for you, Jimmy?" I ask lazily from my prone position o n deck. He replies, laughing softly:
"It's close, eh?"
I may buy land here," he says. "There're two acres for sale next to David Rockefeller's house. Shit, I may buy
them. Why not?" Hard to argue with that. "Let's get some pizza," he says. "There's a great place here that
just serves champagne and pizza. Ahh, I can't stand it. What a tough life." We cruise back, tie up the dinghy
at the dock and start hiking up the hill from the harbor, past Le Select, from which issues Buffett's song The
Captain and the Kid." The Select regulars, who are beyond cool, look out and holler "Hey, Jim, howzit?" It
seems they will do anything to prove how hip they are and how it's not a big deal that Jimmy Buffett hangs out
on their island. They passes their ultimate test a few months before, when the Rolling Stones discovered St.
Bart's and moved in for a spell. Cool prevailed. Buffett gives the regulars a perfunctory wave, plucks a
jasmine flower and sniffs it. "Oh," he says, "just think. I could be recording in New York City. Match this,
55th Street." "Fifty-second Street," I correct him. Buffett laughs. I decide that I like him: "Yer all right,
Buffett. I understand you're accidentally rich." He laughs again. We enter the Momo-Pi-Polo tavern, all the
ocals gather around us, except for the two swarthy guys in the corner, who seem to be closing a major dope
deal. And the waitresses cannot give Jimmy enough attention. "Last night," Buffett says with a sigh as the
first bottle of champagne arrives, "we drank twenty five bottles of champagne in here and never got around to
eating. And that was just the beginning. Lord. I got to settle down: I got a record to finish."
"Horseshit," I say. We toast each other. Blond American hippie women pop out of the woodwork. Good Christ, St.
Bart's should be declared illegal. "A long night tonight, eh Jimmy?" I ask. He just rolls his eyes. About $200
later, we leave Momo-Pi-Polo. "Tell you what, " Buffett says, " while you're here, I really ought to show you
Le President. It's a wild disco out in the hills, a great place." We locate Buffett's rented Mini-Moke, a
bastardized open-air Jeep. He revs it up to about seventy-five MPH and off we roar down a dirt canyon road.
The owner of Le President welcomes him with open arms and starts playing calypso disco; local versions of
"Stayin' Alive" and such. Within a half-hour, the place fills up with Anglos. Jimmy tires of the excessive
attention before I do and we retire to the bar to talk some more about Volcano. "I booked studio time as soon
as I heard George was building a studio in the islands," he says. "I've always wanted to record down here. The
energy's incredible. We've done eight tracks in ten days-we freaked out those British cats at AIR 'cause we
worked so fast and drank so much. I'd wake up Fingers [Greg "Fingers" Taylor, the Reefers' harmonica player],
he'd knock off a hot solo and go back to sleep." Tales of Buffett's past drunken adventures abound, usually
about his day s as a down-and-out singer/songwriter in Nashville and Key West. Parties just seem to spring up
around him. Tom Corcoran, a Key West photographer and writer who's been with Buffett since the beginning
shakes his head in amazement when I later ask him to tell me the most outrageous thing Buffett has ever done.
"It'd take days to think of it. Back when he literally didn't have a buck for dinner, my wife and I'd have him
over for spaghetti and we'd start out with a few beers and things would just build from there. We wrote a few
songs together before things got out of control. You know about the Buford Pusser [Walking Tall] incident? I
think that as in Nashville. Jimmy came out of a bar and had no idea where he was, so he climbed up on top of a
Cadillac to look around and try to get his bearings. Only problem was, the Cadillac belonged to Pusser, who
happened along and damn near killed Buffett.
"There is one thing," Corcoran continues, "that he's never told the press. He became a hero in the Caribbean a
couple of years ago, when he saved two shipwrecked sailors. We were sailing from St. Maarten to Anguilla, here
we spotted a bar. We decided to drop in for some Heinekens. But before we reached the island a freak storm his
us, the temperature dropped thirty degrees and the winds hit gale force. We had run out of fuel and had to
just ride it out. Finally the storm passed, and the wind just died, which never happens in the Caribbean. We
were dead in the water.
"Then we spotted these two old fishermen-the Vanderpool brothers-who'd been wrecked by the storm and were
hysterical. Buffett got 'em on board and we calmed 'em down. Still, no wind. Finally Buffett said, 'Goddammit,
we'll go ashore and trade these two guys for some beers and some fuel.' so he and Groovy [Buffett's captain]
put on their bright yellow foul-weather gear, grabbed a hand-held VHF radio, rowed the dinghy ashore and went
into town. Buffett announced he had the Vanderpools.
"The locals just freaked. They gave him some fuel and a lot of beers, we took the Vanderpools home and the
whole island turned out for a celebration. The paraded Buffett through town in the back of a pickup truck,
with everybody cheering. He's amazing. He turns a shipwreck into a party."
Now, however, Jimmy Buffett may be slowing down a bit. There have been major changes in his life. His marriage
to the smart and lovely Miss Jane (whom he doesn't deserve) and the birth of their first child this year seems
to be stabilizing him. He's selling Euphoria II for a smaller sloop, and he's gotten a bit more businesslike
in the wake of hits like "Come Monday," "Margaritaville" and the platinum success that followed his switch
from a Nashville management firm to Azoff's sleek Front Line organization.
Even so, it's sometimes hard to tell just who's doing the managing. I was sitting around one afternoon with
Buffett, shooting the shit over coffee, when he slowly started getting steamed up. He picked up a phone and
called Azoff-collect- in Los Angeles.
"Goddammit, Irving!", he yelled. "I told you not to wire money down here. It never arrives! Now this is what I
want. Call somebody at Bayshore [Studios} in Florida- the Eagles are there- and have him fly down here, today,
with $2000 in cash. And twelve ping pong balls." There was a short silence. "Yes, twelve ping pong balls.
there's not a goddamn ping pong ball on this island. " He hung up laughing. "Hell, lets go get some beers and
go water-skiing. Tonight we'll be able to play a little ping pong."
I buy us another round in Le President and ask him, "Buffett, do you think you're growing up? This new album,
from what I can tell, shows a lot more depth in your writing- no more 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' kind of
stuff. Are you really maturing, or is your vision of the Caribbean just changing?" He laughs nervously.
Serious questions make him tense. "Well," he finally replies, "I think it's a bit of both. Probably more of me
changing. I've always written in the Caribbean; I can still tap it for a lot of material. I won't get tired of
it as long as there are those goddamn five block lines for gasoline in Santa Monica and the Ayatollah is
declaring everybody on his shit list. It's an escapist situation here, but I think I can take it to the point
where I'm maturing, and apply that to where I would like to be as a writer "I am pleased with this album. I
wrote just about all of it on the boat. I came in totally prepared for once. I caught a lot of flak over the
last LP, the live one in 1978. People either loved it or hated it. I figured, 'Goddamnit, it was cut live and
that's the way we are live.' It didn't get much airplay. But I don't care. It sold well. "After that, I
wanted to lay back and maybe return to a Changes in Latitudes... or A1A kind of thing, to settle into
that kind of writing. I had six months to work, so I came down here to just sit on the boat and get into a
schedule and write every day. I think this is the best fuckin' record we've done. It's like bringing that
feeling of the past to what's happening today. There's something for everybody, from 'Fins' to 'Sending the
Old Man Home.' It's clever stuff."
Buffett drains his greenie and seems embarrassed at talking so much. I suddenly feel the unmistakable nudge of
large, firm, and braless female breast on my right arm. The nudging becomes insistent. I look to my right. The
breast is attached to a rather attractive, although hopelessly drunk young woman. "Please introduce me to
Jimmy," she whispers.
Buffett, whose radar is pretty good, calls for the check. We shower the bar with money and depart. He is
silent as he races the Mini-Moke up the road, scattering gravel and dirt. "Let's check out the club at the
Jean Bart," he says.
"Buffett," I ask, "what's this business where you once said Mitch Miller and Jean Lafitte shaped you?" He
roars with laughter. "Well, well, well. Did I say that? Mitch Miller, for sure. In the old days. Sing Along
with Mitch. Who didn't? I remember that very well, because I was ten or eleven at the time. But Jean Lafitte
was my hero as a romantic character. I'm not sure he was a musical influence. His lifestyle influenced me,
most definitely, 'cause I'm the very opposite of Mitch Miller."
And what of Tom McGuane's Buffett-related line about the hinterland where Hank Williams and Xavier Cugat
meet? "That's a great sentence McGuane (Buffett's brother in law) wrote. I think it's still true, even more
true now. I never thought of myself in those terms till he wrote that. But it was pretty much descriptive of
what I've wanted to do. That is what my progression has been through all the albums. Volcano is about as
representative of that statement as anything I've done. A good mix. "
"But what about the song 'Fins'" I press. "That's totally off the wall and can be interpreted as either being
sexist or feminist-about lounge lizards hitting on young girls." "I know," Buffett says. "I cover all the
bases on that one. It's just on e of those things that come about on the road. 'Fins' was an in thing with the
band, just a term for checking out chicks. A 1979 version of 'Girlwatchers'. But I think it's got a little
more class. It's really about landsharks who live in bars and feed right after dark. My audiences picked up on
it and started 'finning.' " Buffett demonstrates finning by taking his hands off the wheel and wagging them
above his head: "Fins up! Or," he says as he lets one hand wilt like a limp penis," Fins down." Finettes. Fin
soup. Fin pie. Fins everywhere." He skids the jeep into the parking lot of the Hotel Jean Bart. The hotel's
club, the Frigate, is supposed to be closed but Buffett raps on the door anyway. A bouncer inspects us through
the peephole and we enter yet another disco. This one is totally out of hand. The crowd is composed of drunken
tourists who remove bits of clothing while they dance, and sharp-eyed local guys who lean coolly against the
bar, evaluating the night's prospects and biding their time.
"Fins. Land Sharks," Buffett murmurs as he goes off to find the men's room. I dance with an American who,
after thirty seconds, asks me if she can meet Buffett and then tries to perpetrate some kind of sexual act
right there on the lighted dance floor. I can sense the locals at the bar toting her up.
"See you around darlin'," I says as I rezip my pants and head toward the bar. "As a fellow journalism-school
graduate, Buffett," I say, "I advise you that this place is getting weird and they're gonna be after you
pretty soon."
"I know, " he nods soberly. "About time to head for the boat."
"But lemme ask you something," I interject. "When did you first take on the Caribbean as your personal
friend?" "I think it's always been there, " he says. "I once read a great passage in The Commodore's Story to
the effect that 'if you ever grow up on a body of water, you know it's connected to another one.' My
grandfather [a sailing master] told me sea stories, tales about the Caribbean and how exotic it was. That was
a lure. I grew up on Mobile Bay and I knew it would connect to white, sandy beaches and palm trees- which
don't exist around Mobile Bay. You know that you can gain the access if you have the courage and the spirit of
adventure within you to get out on the water. It does link you to any other place." His eyes take on a faraway
look: "Time to go back to the boat." The next time I talk to Buffett, he says he is en route to Hawaii to open
an Eagle's show there. I can't help recalling Miss Pigtails in St. Bart's and her pineapple-juice
instructions. But Buffett is with his wife, and I don't have the heart to remind him that Hawaii is one big
pineapple field. I mean, fresh squeezed probably does the job better than the canned variety...