Woke up to this sad piece of news this morning: Jimmy Buffett has died.
Buffett was a balladeer of a fading maritime frontier, best exampled in the wistful A Pirate Looks At 40, which is one of my all-time favorite songs.
Yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late
The cannons don’t thunder
There’s nothing to plunder
I’m an over-40 victim of fate
Arriving too late
Arriving too late…
There was a touch of affable outlaw in Buffett, and that mid-’70s era shutting between Key West Florida and Livingston, Montana with the likes of McGuane and Harrison represent a hazy but magnificent golden age of wild living and good writing. We won’t see its like again.
Getting together with some friends on Sunday for a Labor Day Weekend guitar pull. We’ll sing Son of a Sailor, Pirate, He Went To Paris… and wish the man fair winds and following seas — off to that One Particular Harbor.
Wayne says
Sending the Old Man Home has always been a personal favorite.
Kay says
“If we couldn’t laugh we could all go insane.”
Thanks for that wisdom, Jimmy Buffett.
One of the many early sound tracks of my post college days. So many of these exceptional musicians are in new harbors these days. Time for a margarita !
Clyde Dildine says
This is one very sad Parrothead today. So glad we were able to see him in Eugene right before Covid set in.
JimC says
Yeah, man….
Benny Bence says
“I wanna be there. I wanna go back down and lie beside the sea there. With a tin cup for a chalice. Fill it up with good red wine and I’ll be chewin’ on a honeysuckle vine.”-Jimmy Buffett Tin Cup Chalice, 1974 RIP Jimmy Buffett.
J.F. Bell says
A year that’s taken Gordon Lightfoot, Cormac McCarthy, and Jimmy Buffett…
Hard winter coming, one suspects.
JimC says
Yeah… there’s some serious rents in the fabric.
Cooter Brown says
“Rancho Deluxe” is streaming on Tubi. Script by Thomas McGuane, soundtrack by Jimmy Buffett, cameos by both in a band at the Wrangler Bar in Livingston.
Some seriously funny lines. Scenery chewed by Slim Pickens.
“I will not stand for a west that isn’t free!”
Been a tough stretch–Robbie Robertson too.
RIP, Jimmy.
JimC says
It’s been decades since I watched that. Now it’s a must-do.
Mike says
And Harry Dean Stanton to boot! I bet the down time was a hell of a lot of fun!
Mike says
This was very very very sad news. I always thought he’d be like Willie, touring into his 90’s. Been a fan more than 2/3’s of my life! Got every LP, in some form, except Down to Earth. That one’s always been elusive.
Called my place in NM “Rancho Deluxe”. Still have the sign in my shop. I used to buy DVD’s, and soundtrack CD’s, of it by the case and hand ’em out to all my pals after I bought that place.
Knew I could use a Bloody Mary, so I stumbled next door to the bar….
Smooth Sailing Bubba!
The FB image is my new screensaver!
Jean says
I can sure relate to being, “200 years too late”! May he sail with joy across the sky!