REPEAT FOR THOSE HIT BY SANDY

Please note that the videos embedded with the songs were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.

On a day when life was personally at its most confusing, I heard this song "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" (2005) on Radio Margaritaville (where else) and thought what a great piece of advice Jimmy was giving me.

 

Then upon realizing that I had the song on CD, Take the Weather With You, I listened a little more closely to what Jimmy was actually singing about.  As many of you know, Jimmy Buffett grew up in Alabama and has strong ties to the Gulf Coast and here he is singing about when Hurricane Katrina and "Pontchartrain buried  the ninth ward to the second floor".  The song has a 2005 copyright so must have been written soon after this terrible hurricane hit in September 2005.  

At first it seemed rather banal advice to people whose loved ones died and had their homes ruined, but right after the storm what else was there to do but "Breathe in, Breathe out, Move on".  As he so often does, Mr. Buffett got it right again. 

U is for UNCLE JOHN'S BAND

Please note that the videos embedded with the songs were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.

Well as you all know, this song was not an original Jimmy Buffett song, but originally and wonderfully done by The Grateful Dead.  Also, I am not too fond of Jimmy's covers, which he seems to be doing quite a bit of lately.

That being said, "Uncle John's Band" which Jimmy covers on the Fruitcakes CD is a pretty good cover and a great song for "U" day.  As you can probably tell from my use of songs, this album is one of my favorites and will also show up on "V" day.

Listen and enjoy and mellow out, however you usually do, be it rum or other stuff.

R is for RHUMBA MAN

CMT music video


Today is "R" day and I'm finally putting up a song from one of Jimmy's most recent CDs.  The song is "Rhumba Man" (written by Jesse Winchester, who performs with Jimmy here) and it is on Jimmy Buffett's 2009 CD Hotel Buffett. 


I played it because today is a beautiful spring day and we're nearing summer and it's a great day to get out there and Rhumba as I know so many Jimmy fans are already doing in the parking lots prior to his concerts on the present tour.

RHUMBA BABY!!

Q is for QUIETLY MAKING NOISE

Please note that the videos embedded with the songs were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.


First off, don't forget to check out the amazing video for this song, actually I think he used the song to highlight the video of cats being drawn by what appears to be a computer program.  Good stuff!

Anyway, "Quietly Making Noise" (1994) is from the very lively Fruitcakes CD which includes "Fruitcakes" which is also a great song.

Naturally this one was chosen because it was the only Jimmy Buffett "Q" song that I could find, fortunately it's a good one.  Jimmy is once again singing about Paris which appears to be a place that he really loves and so there are many references to Oscar Wilde "died in bed, several floors above my head" and then goes on to mention going into the metro, meeting various people of different nationalities, and then "singers and writers and poets have flocked here for centuries, the city of light is built upon mountains of memories".

A reader did comment that he had seen Jimmy perform in Paris, did he do this song?
 

J is for JAMAICA MISTAICA

Please note that the videos embedded with the songs were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.


I am sure that many of you have heard about the fact that Jimmy Buffett's plane was fired upon by Jamaican authorities in 1996.  Well, in this lively and fun song, "Jamaica Mistaica" (1996), Jimmy musically tells us the story and the song is part of one of my favorite CD's Banana Wind (which has a hidden track of "Treetop Flying" on it).

Something that Jimmy does not include in the song is the fact that Bono (of U2) and his wife and kids were some of the passengers on the plane when it landed in Nigril.  Apparently, the authorities in Jamaica mistook the plane for a smuggler's plane that they had been alerted to watch for.  Fortunately (especially for Jamaican authorities) there were no injuries although there was some property damage (bullet holes) to the plane.

We all know that Jimmy loves flying and loves his planes.  This one was a Grumann HU-16 Albatross

Ah "another shitty day in paradise" to quote Jimmy.

I is for (TWO SONGS)

O.K. I really didn't think I could get by doing "I" without using "It's Five O'clock Somewhere" (2003) which has been associated with Jimmy Buffett since the day it came out.  You may wonder, looking at the video why, instead good old Jimmy, you see very handsome Alan Jackson singing.  This is a song that they did together and gave Jimmy his first Country Music Award ever.

When Jimmy does this one in concert he often calls on his old friend and singing partner, Mac Macanally, to sing Alan Jackson's part and it sounds really good.  You can hear live concerts on Radio Margaritaville often.

Now for the song that I love and that I fully planned on putting in for "I":



Please note that the videos embedded with the songs were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.


"Island" (1980)  is a beautiful little song where Jimmy seems to be saying that finding love is as difficult as landing on this beautiful island that he sees in the distance.

Enjoy the Double Concert.   Link to RADIO MARGARITAVILLE

A is for AFRICAN FRIEND

Please note that the videos with the songs embedded were posted by some great Parrotheads on YouTube and not my creation.


 African Friend (1973) is one of my favorites from the Son of a Son of A Sailor album and well proves that one of the things that Jimmy Buffett does best is tell a story; he is a writer at heart. This story is about a man from Africa visiting Haiti, we're never told why but there is some political feeling to his visit. Looking forward to some free time, he goes to a casino, plays craps and runs into the narrator (I always think it is Jimmy, but who knows). They have a great time gambling, winning, drinking and ending up on the "steps of a whorehouse".

The African man is asked to leave the country and leaves the narrator a note which has my favorite Buffett lines in it: "It was a pleasure and a hell of an evening, surely was our night to win". I think of these lines every time I've had a great night doing anything especially gambling. The American and African became friends for a night and who knows, maybe always. 

What are your thoughts on this song?

AN A-Z JIMMY BUFFETT CONCERT

That's right "A PIRATE LOOKS PAST SIXTY" will be having a spring concert of Jimmy Buffett songs for the A-Z challenge. STARTS TOMORROW!!! Each day I will post a song and (if all goes well) you'll be able to listen and see the great video some Parrothead on YouTube created, and then read what I think about the song. It doesn't end THERE though. Let's all discuss the song in comments!!! Could be fun!

A SHORT LIST OF PIRATE THINGS

Written for GBE2 week #44




This is my short list of pirate facts and other things:

1.  Yes the flag in the picture is hanging outside my house on an unusually warm day in March in New England.

2.  Pirates are often shown with parrots because in the 1600's, 1700's etc., these were considered "exotic" and were therefore somewhat valuable.  Never accuse a pirate of not wanting to make a quick buck.

3.  In my pirate reading I have found that it was not really known for pirates to use "walking the plank" as a punishment.  More usual punishments for wayward pirates that upset their captains were the wonderful practice of leaving them on an uninhabited island to die or the warm thought of tying them to the mast to starve.

4.  This is for my fellow rum lovers.  Yes, Captain Morgan was a real pirate named Captain Henry Morgan, who was actually the British Governor of Jamaica for a time during the 1600's.  I prefer Gosling's rum, especially the Dark Rum which makes a great Dark and Stormy.

5.  A Dark and Stormy is the world's best drink mixing Dark Rum (preferably Goslings) with Ginger Beer (not ginger ale).  This drink came to popularity in Bermuda and I'm sure all good pirates drink it.

6.  Rhode Island was considered a great place for pirates in the 1600's and 1700's because of vagaries of its coastline with many safe inlets and the corruptibility of the government.  i.e. the term "Rogue's Island".  Some things never change.

All you readers join this blog for it's A-Z of Jimmy Buffett songs starting April 1, or I'll have to tie you to the mast.