Jimmy Buffett was an idol of mine. His laid-back, tropical island, good-humored musical escapism was part of the soundtrack of my life, through college, career, marriage, parenthood, across the world and into my late 60s. My daughters, like it or not, had to be Parrotheads.
So, Buffett’s unexpected passing on Friday at age 76, almost as if the end of summer were an appropriate time for his escape, hit me unusually hard — as I believe it did my brother-in-law and so many other fans who found a loving, devil-may-care, chillin’ attitude in this songwriter’s words, music and lifestyle.
He was a musical legend and a billionaire, but his songs were real, personal, accessible, wise, sometimes melancholy and always passionate about living. He was also a Cubs fan and played a historic first concert at Wrigley Field in 2005, opening the way for other musicians to play there. I remember how excited Buffett was to be playing on a stage in center field, and he kept stopping between songs to voice his admiration for the Friendly Confines.
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Buffett, the son of a sailor, as he put it himself, wrote music about squalls out on the Gulf Stream, tropical drinks and tropical storms, sailing to foreign shores and a beach paradise away from the 9-to-5 that seemed to rouse us from our day-to-day work and transport us to vacation wonders.
Buffett was a storyteller first, and he lived his life like a song. He wrote hits like “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” signature songs like “A Pirate Looks at Forty” or “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” songs about smugglers, land sharks, boat drinks and Caribbean cruises, and early albums from a stretch of the coastal A1A highway in the Florida Keys. There was poetry in many of them too, like “He Went to Paris” and “Death of an Unpopular Poet.”
In the process, he even invented his own genre, not country and western, but gulf and western, critics say, and we all got to cruise along with him, wear our flip-flops and follow his lead, his laughter, his love of the ocean and his enjoyment of life.
We Parrotheads felt we could capture that passion sometimes, if we could just emulate that joyful approach, humorous self-deprecation and sense of adventure — the magic played out on acoustic guitars, calypso and steel drums, harmonica solos and the cheery voices of his Coral Reefer Band.
But there was something much deeper here that hit me with his sudden passing. Somehow, we Parrotheads had assumed he would live forever, as one of my friends wrote in a social media tribute. The sudden end of his bright songline marked the inevitable decline of a generation of fans who grew up with him and loved him, along with our kids and grandkids.
As a foreign correspondent, I always had the latest Buffett tape in my bag, and songs like “Banana Republics,” written by his friend Steve Goodman, hit home. Living in Mexico City, I used to play Buffett’s “Chanson Pour les Petites Enfants” to my little daughters at bedtime and sing, “Once around Venus, twice around Mars.”
I met Buffett in Boston in 1973 when he played a concert at Paul’s Mall there during my college years. My wife reminds me that I played his music on cassettes all through our European honeymoon. We saw him together as newlyweds when he played in Dallas in 1985. I took my younger daughter to that famous concert at Wrigley Field in Chicago and mortified her when I bought a parrot hat and danced in center field.
A troubadour born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, on Christmas Day in 1946, Buffett was raised in Mobile, Alabama, a product of parochial school, His brand of whimsy seems a very unlikely source of wisdom, but it was. He was the stuff of legend, and he was so successful as a musician that he built a chain of businesses. His fans loved the merchandise, the Hawaiian shirts and the beverages.
“It’s pure escapism is all it is,” Buffett explained to the Arizona Republic in 2021. “I’m not the first one to do it, nor shall I probably be the last. But I think it’s really a part of the human condition that you’ve got to have some fun. You’ve got to get away from whatever you do to make a living or other parts of life that stress you out.”
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Even fellow artists and celebrities were fans. Paul McCartney was a friend and in a recent post called Buffett “one of the kindest and most generous people.” Buffett drank with Hunter S. Thompson but not too much. He played songs with James Taylor for a Boston Strong concert. And Bob Dylan loved the 40-year-old pirate song and put Buffett on his list of favorite songwriters.
Buffett was amazed at the volume of songs and albums he released over the decades, and he was always grateful for his fans. He was willing to sing the songs they most loved and wanted to hear at his annual tours. People came out to have a good time, and he recognized that. In return, he gave great performances that brought them to their feet.
“I’ve had a great run of everything, and I’m enjoying it,” he told staffer Brian Hiatt in an interview for Rolling Stone when he was 73. “And I’m not telling people what to listen to. Once (the songs are) out the door, then it’s up to them. You make it for them, you don’t make it for yourself. … They can have whatever they want.”
We surely did, though as Buffett wrote, “Never meant to last.” If his grateful Parrothead fans could pick his epitaph, we might quote from one of his own favorite songs, “He Went to Paris,” as fitting for our lost legend:
“Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.”
Storer H. Rowley, a former national editor and foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, teaches journalism and communication at Northwestern University.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
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