On Missing Jimmy Buffett: That One Hurt a Lot More Than Expected

As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin’ man 
I have chalked up many a mile. 
I read dozens of books about heroes and crooks,
And I learned much from both of their styles

Jimmy Buffett, Son of a Son of a Sailor

A while back, my partner/publisher/friend Lou Aronica asked a question: who is a musician whose death would hit you so hard that you’d have to take a day just to process the grief? Lou named a few: Brian Wilson and Bruce Springsteen among them, if I recall correctly. I’m not sure that I actually gave an answer, but I certainly didn’t think of Jimmy Buffett. Probably because it never occurred to me that the great man might ever die. As his own song tells us, “our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies.” Also because, to be frank, I had no idea his passing would hit me as hard as it did.

In fact, I don’t think a celebrity death has ever hit me as hard as Jimmy Buffett’s. Mr. Rogers’ and Dr. Seuss’s came very close. Well, Ray Bradbury’s certainly did, but I knew the man. He was both a mentor and a dear friend. I told him that I loved him, and he told me the same. But I only met Jimmy Buffett once, and I’m pretty sure that of the two of us, I am the only one who remembered it.

I cried real tears when I heard the news that Jimmy Buffett had passed away, and I’m not even sure I can articulate why. Jimmy Buffett was the first live concert I ever saw (at the Fabulous Fox Theatre when he recorded his first live album, You Had to Be There) followed shortly by Queen. As far as concerts go, that was a pretty good start. I was back at the Fox the very next year when Jimmy Buffett played a benefit for Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign. And after that … I saw him pretty much every year pretty much up until the time I got married. For all her many wonderful qualities, my wife is not a Parrot Head.

The point is, from youth to as close as I ever got to adulthood, Jimmy Buffett was a very significant part of my life. My ever-evolving circles of friends and I looked forward to the annual Jimmy Buffett show the way we looked forward to Christmas. It was more than a concert for us; it was, well … it was a family reunion. The celebration started from the cold, early morning—months before the show—when we’d go camp out at Turtles for tickets, and usually ended with a very large hangover breakfast party the day after the show. The joy was in the camaraderie, the community, the people, as much as it was in the music and the performance.

I miss that.

I didn’t know that the last live Jimmy Buffett show I saw was the last, and I’m glad, because I wouldn’t have known what to do with the emotion. That’s the way it goes. Most of the important threads in our lives end without closure. We seldom get to say goodbye to that or those we love. Just … one day we realize that something dear is gone, and we are that much closer to the end ourselves. Looking back, I’m not even sure I can remember which show was the last one. They sort of blur together, the way favorite Christmases do.

What I do remember, however, is my favorite. It was the Jimmy’s Jump Up tour, which was (wisely) renamed Feeding Frenzy for its live album. I saw the show three times on that tour—the first and only time I ever saw a non-local act more than once in a year. I’d interviewed one of Jimmy Buffett’s bandmates, the great Fingers Taylor, for a local music publication (the sorely missed Footnotes) so I had a backstage pass for the show in Chattanooga, a press pass for one of the two Atlanta shows, and Turtles-bought seats for the other. This, to me, is peak Buffett. I’m not (necessarily) saying it was his best show, or even the best one that I saw. But it was my favorite, and I’m not even sure I can tell you why. Part of it was the fantastic seats for all three shows, part of it was the people I was with (as always), and part of it was the set list.

The live shows featured more songs than made the album, of course, and the final show in Atlanta had more than any of the others. Mr. Buffett and the band did one of my favorites, The Coast of Marseilles, only at that last Atlanta show. He also surprised us all by doing God’s Own Drunk, a song written by the late Lord Buckley. Jimmy Buffett used to perform that song regularly back in the old days, but he had stopped after a lawsuit from Lord Buckley’s family. For a while, he replaced it in concert with a song called The Lawyer and the Asshole until (rumor has it but the Internet does not confirm) another lawsuit stopped that one as well. But that night, when we heard the familiar opening chords of God’s Own Drunk, my friends and I all exchanged astonished glances. “Wait, was that…?!” It was. My way of explanation, Mr. Buffett simply said, “Y’all want to hear it; I want to sing it. Fuck ’em. Let ’em sue.” We loved it. We loved very beloved note and every memorized, sang-along-with line.

When I heard about Mr. Buffett’s passing, I listened to a lot of his music starting (just as I had as a kid) with You Had to Be There. I listened to his last “goodbye” song, Bubbles Up, more times than I can count. Without really meaning to, I saved Feeding Frenzy for last. That’s when the emotion really hit, when all those memories came flooding back.

I have to confess that I’ve never really been a fan of Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett’s most famous song. It’s not that I don’t like it exactly, I just wish that some of his better songs—The Coast of Marseilles, A Pirate Looks at 40, He Went to Paris, and even The Last Mango in Paris just to name a very few—were half as well known. But when I was listening to Feeding Frenzy again, it was freakin’ Margaritaville that really got to me. That’s when all the memories came flooding back, bringing the real tears with them (speaking of floods).

We’d all been standing and singing and shouting for all we were worth throughout the whole show. Finally, near the end, Jimmy Buffett said, “We’re here in the state of Georgia, in the city of Atlanta … on the island of Margaritaville! Please remain standing for the national anthem!” I’d say the crowd went nuts, but that train had left the station hours before. It was utter pandemonium. The song started, and then we were all singing along. All of us.

Everyone knew the words, of course—the “official” ones as well as all the many unofficial Parrot Head variations. Anyone raised going to church in the south knows the power of a large number of voices raised together in familiar, beloved song. When those voices number in the tens of thousands, well, it’s a miracle, it’s the thunder. We all had our arms around the people on either side of us, and we were swaying and jumping and dancing for all we were worth. Suddenly, I was aware of someone on the row behind me putting her hand on my shoulder, and I saw someone at the end of the aisle reaching forward to put his hand on the person in front of him. And it occurred to me then that we were all connected in that precious moment, in voice and by touch. I’ll swear before God and all the angels that if there had been a spark, it would have passed through every single person in that great space, because we were all, every blessed one of us, touching someone else, a single, unbroken chain of united humanity.

I’ve seen hundreds of shows in tiny coffee houses and pubs all the way to stadiums and arenas. I’ve been blessed. I’ve never seen anything like that performance of, yes, freakin’ Margaritaville. I know I’ll never experience anything like that again.

That was what I remembered listening to Feeding Frenzy. That’s what brought the tears. I think that might be at the heart of my Jimmy Buffett’s passing hit me so hard. I’d always told myself that next year, I’ll call some of the old gang and we’ll see a Jimmy Buffett show again. Well, if not next year, then the year after for sure. We’ll feel that old magic, that community, again. Of course that never happened, and I don’t even remember which show was my last. Now, I know a part of my life is over forever, and it was a part that I treasured. The world feels a little emptier, and that blessed unity seems that much farther away.

Sail true, Mr. Buffett. You made the world better. You are loved, and we’ll miss you forever. Bubbles up.