that one particular harbour

growing older and up with Jimmy Buffett

The first concert I ever attended was a Jimmy Buffett show in the mid-80s. I was somewhere south of two years old and my parents took me to see the King of the Parrotheads at an amphitheater outside of Kansas City. I remember nothing. My mom loves telling the story of how I was so tired they couldn’t rouse me for my favorite Buffett song (at the time): “Volcano.”

I woke up on Saturday morning and checked my phone, intending to look up the scores of the European soccer matches that had already started. Instead, I was greeted with news of Buffett’s untimely death. Just 76, not all that old. It threw me in a way I wouldn’t have imagined. I have nothing to add to the litany of tributes that have poured forth in the past 24ish hours. The sheer accomplishment of his life, the zany stories of getting shot at by the Jamaican police while hanging out with Bono, the tributes from still-living Beatles members, the outpouring of remembrances from friends, acquaintances, and collaborators, ranging from President Biden to Kenny Chesney (this one choked me up) to Brian Wilson to, somehow, Pitbull all testify to the epic scale and longevity of his music (and business) career. For every musician who became a mogul, Jimmy Buffett charted the course (I had to use a nautical metaphor). All I can offer is a personal tribute, a sort of obituary for the musician that, more than with any other, I grew up with.

You see, Buffett was my dad’s favorite musician which means by the law of transitivity he was my favorite musician as a child. Many were the road trips between our native Kansas and our adopted Colorado that were soundtracked almost exclusively by Buffett’s indefinable sound (countryish, islandish, Gulf-and-Western, as I’ve read since his passing). From childhood, I knew the words to every song, except for a certain hit that my mom always skipped past and therefore remained enigmatic to me until adolescence when we forgot to skip it once.

By the law of teenage rebellion, Buffett was decidedly not my favorite musician once I entered my angsty teenage years. To come of age as a young man in the late-‘90s was deeply unfortunate, musically speaking. The pickings were slim. But anything but Buffett would do, including, apparently, Creed. Buffett was Dad Music; not just my dad, but the broad category of Dads. And he therefore had to be mocked.

And look, Buffett (and his fans) are easy to mock. A bunch of rich Boomers donning Hawaiian shirts and pretending to be hippies before they return to their McMansions in the suburbs and their white-collar jobs. I get it. Pretty soft target as far as targets go.

What made it more endearing for me is that it always felt like Buffett was in on the joke. He knew he was selling a lifestyle, an escapist dream with an indelible appeal to the suburbanized who dream of driving the A1A and kicking back a lime-garnished beer (or a certain frozen concoction) in a Key West joint bartended by a kindly black islander. That so many people feel the need to escape is indicative of our discontentment with the modern world, which runs deep despite success. Is it really so laughable to find solace in a three-hour sing-along with a barefooted maestro playing the songs you know by heart? We all have our preferred means of escape. Whether it is mountains or beaches or anonymous cities or romance novels or video games—we all like to hide out for a while. So, go easy on the Parrotheads.

Buffett knew what he was doing; he knew who his crowd was. And, it must be said, the dude knew how to make a buck. Lots and lots of dollars flowing into the Margaritaville enterprise. Not so bad for a troubadour from southern Mississippi.

But what often gets obscured in the “Margaritaville” fog is that the man could flat-out write a song. If you doubt my claim, listen to his old albums from the ‘70s. The “Volcano” album, “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” “Living and Dying in 3/4 Time,” and my favorite, 1974’s “A-1-A.” His live albums are iconic for their sheer joy and range. His cover of Crosby, Stills, and Nash’s “Southern Cross”, James Taylor’s “Mexico”, or Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” compare favorably with the original. I would argue that his “Southern Cross” exceeds the original.

But it’s Buffett’s singles that speak most to his genius. “A Pirate Looks at 40,” which he wrote in his mid-20s. The utterly romantic and pining “Come Monday.” “The Captain and the Kid,” “Cowboy in the Jungle,” “Son of a Son of a Sailor,” “Little Miss Magic,” and “Pencil Thin Mustache.” Nearly all of Buffett’s songs tell stories. His characters are well-drawn and evocative. Even into his 60s and 70s, he could still weave a tale.

My two personal favorites are “He Went to Paris” and “One Particular Harbour.” “He Went to Paris” is the true story of a Spanish Civil War vet Buffett met in Chicago. If you’ve never heard it, do yourself a favor and go listen to it right now. Listen to it without feeling the rich combination of beauty and loss that comprise a life, if you can. “One Particular Harbour” is a fine song on the original album but comes alive when performed (this one will do). The backup Tahitian vocals, the island setting, the smell of the sea, the desire for an escape to that one particular harbor we each hold in our hearts (or imaginations). The song represents everything that is quintessentially Jimmy Buffett. It’s a perfect Jimmy Buffett song.

Clearly, I eventually came back around on Buffett’s music. One of my favorite memories from our early marriage is when Clara and I flew to Las Vegas to see Buffett at the MGM Grand. My wife says she’ll never forget my dad dancing to every song and singing every word.

We went again a few years ago to see him in Denver co-headlining with what is left of The Eagles. And that was the last time though none of us knew it then. We sang along to songs written before my brother and I were born. They felt timeless as did the man who wrote them. It turns out the man wasn’t but his music just might be.

When I told my kids yesterday morning that Jimmy Buffett had passed away, they were sad. We prayed for him and his family at breakfast. And when my three kids sat down to play Legos yesterday afternoon, my 12-year-old took over the DJ role on our record player and began spinning his papa’s old Buffett records. He sang every word.