I BOUGHT MY FIRST HAWAIIAN SHIRT ON THE day before Christmas in 1977. I was living in Connecticut at the time, and it was a present to myself during a bad period in my life.
I bought the shirt because I had been spending most of my cold, winter nights sipping frozen margaritas in my living room while listening to Jimmy Buffett’s song Margaritaville on the stereo. I had been enraptured by that song from the first moment I heard it, and if I couldn’t live the lyrics at that point in my life, well, at least I could buy the shirt and the dream.
The pleasures I derived from the song went far beyond the pictures it evoked of a life free of care under a tropical sun. Buffett was telling me that I wasn’t alone, that he knew how I felt: cold and misunderstood, deserted and despairing. He had been there, too.
The years passed and my life changed. And then, not long ago, I saw an ad for a Jimmy Buffett concert at the Miami Marine Stadium. There was a photo of Buffett with the ad, and he looked the same as I remembered him, the same tanned, leathery face, the same whimsical smile, the same long, blond hair. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, too, only it looked a little oversize so that it could hide a middle-age paunch.
Buffett was 40 now. I hadn’t thought much about him or his music in years, but his face in the ad reminded me that he’d had a hold on me like no musician I’ve ever heard. What was the attraction? And why did I no longer feel it? I decided to try to get in touch with Buffett in Key West, to act out my earlier fantasy and actually meet him. I thought that might help me understand his appeal.
The legend of Jimmy Buffett began on Christmas Day in 1946, when he was born in Pascagoula, Miss. There isn’t much mention of his parents in his official autobiography, other than to say they brought Jimmy up in a normal, middle class, Catholic family. But there is a pointed reference to his grandfather, who was supposedly a big influence on Jimmy’s life and career. He was a sailing captain who used to regale little Jimmy with tales of all the exotic places he had seen. Jimmy fell under the spell of his grandfather’s tales of the sea. Treasure Island became his bible, and the Caribbean an attraction he would never shake.
He became a fan of Caribbean music and, in particular, of Harry Belafonte. He liked the way Belafonte tied his shirts at the navel, and the bouncy rhythms of his calypso music. When Jimmy, who was a shy youth, picked up the guitar to impress girls, he naturally began playing the music that held an allure for him. He added a twist of his own, combining calypso with a country sound, and in time he did for black Caribbean music what Elvis Presley did for black rhythm and blues: He made it white.
Buffett recorded his first album in Nashville; it sold 320 copies. His sec-
ond album was lost by his record company before it was released. Despairing, Buffett gave up thoughts of a serious career and drifted down to Key West, which was then, in the ’70s, building a reputation as a haven for all those types who had fallen out of tune with mainland America — drifters, homosexuals, artists, druggies left over from the ’60s.
In Key West, Buffett worked as a mate on fishing boats and shrimpers, and at night he played his songs in seedy bars along Duval Street. He built a reputation as an easygoing, amiable guy who liked to drink, take drugs and chase women. A lot of his songs had to do with the tough luck he had known: the penniless days that on one occasion forced him to shoplift food from a convenience store; the women he’d loved and who had left him; the tough bars he had played in, behind a net of chicken wire that fended off the beer bottles thrown by redneck customers.
His songs and the mood they created began to catch on. His third album, A White Sport Coat and A Pink Crustacean, was a nationwide hit. And a few years later, Margaritaville established him forever in the public consciousness. In fact, Jimmy Buffett began to overshadow his music. He was acknowledged in the music world as a decent songwriter with a modest voice and musical talent. It was his persona that drew fans to him, in much the same way that Johnny Cash’s persona draws his fans.
Early in the ’80s, Buffett began to mellow. He started talking about the bald spot on his head, and the drugs that almost killed him, and how he still didn’t understand women, and how he had never expected to live into his 40s, anyway.
I DROVE DOWN TO KEY WEST ON A sunny afternoon, and walked up and down Duval Street. I didn’t find much that resembled anything out of a Jimmy Buffett song, but I did discover a store he owns, Margaritaville, which sells Buffett T-shirts and Hawaiian shirts with parrots and the lyrics of his songs printed on them. His fans, I learned, are called Parrot Heads, and if they want to, they can drop in to Margaritaville and buy just about any kind of Buffettabilia they can think of.
And if they’re too far away to get to Key West, well, they can subscribe to Buffett’s monthly newsletter, The Coconut Telegraph, which is filled with ads for his products. A die-hard Jimmy Buffett fan can live in Alaska, and still buy his Parrot Head wristwatch for $30; a Margaritaville glass for $10; a Parrot Head golf shirt for $30; a Margaritaville tote bag for $25; a Shark Fin fishing hat for $16; a Wasted Away T-shirt for $12.95; and even a Parrot Head Club tie — presumably to be worn with a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
JIMMY BUFFETT LIVES IN A PASTEL-colored house surrounded by a big, stucco wall. His servant let me in. Buffett was sprawled on the sofa in his living room, talking on the phone about the new airplane he had just bought and his home on the Caribbean island of St. Bart’s.
I stood there and waited. It was a comfortably cluttered house, the house of a bachelor. Through the bedroom doorway I could see his rumpled jeans and sneakers and sweatsocks tossed on the floor.
When Buffett got off the phone, I introduced myself, and he led me outside to a patio that overlooked a muddy canal dotted here and there with tiny islands.
He sat down at a table in the sun. He was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and his feet were bare. He put his feet up on the table and leaned back in the sun. I saw that his toenails were manicured.
“I can’t give you more than an hour,” he said. “I already told my life story. I never expected to live this long, anyway.”
He spoke in a soft, faint drawl in which “wasn’t” becomes “wadn’t.” He is a short, stocky man with thinning blond hair and a noticeable bald spot. He had shaved off his trademark mustache. I asked him about his fans.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I got a good following in Boston, Ohio and Portland. I don’t bother at 40 to try to figure it out. I never figured I’d live this long, anyway.” Then, in the next breath, he said, “I like to think my fans read a little bit and think a little more. I use three-syllable words in my songs. They’re a form of thinking person’s escapism. I sing about things I get to do in my life — go to the beach, drink a little beer. I was just lucky enough to get my thumb on the pulse. My concerts are a party, a cheap vacation for people in cold climates.” When Buffett tells his life story, he doesn’t like interruptions. This wasn’t a conversation, it was a monologue.
“I never thought about a Jimmy Buffett style until 10 years ago when I saw all these people in the audience wearing Hawaiian shirts,” he went on. “I was in Pittsburgh in February, and it was freezing cold. I said to myself, I’m on to something. Now, my fans dress up for my concerts in all kinds of outrageous costumes. Shark costumes. Parrot costumes. In Memphis, the Jimmy Buffett Fan Club comes marching in in blue blazers and yachting caps.”
Just then, a woman arrived with Buffett’s lunch — a cheeseburger and fries. Like the Buffett song says, A Cheeseburger in Paradise. Buffett chowed down while I watched. He asked if I wanted a french fry. I declined.
“I know I’m just a mediocre singer and writer,” he said, “but I’m a great performer and that’s what counts. I’m one of the few living legends left, but I try not to think how long it will last. I just try to remember to duck because it might all go to hell in a moment’s notice.
“That’s why I started my store in 1980. I figured if I couldn’t have my music career anymore, I could still capitalize on my audience. We did $4 million last year. I don’t just sell them T-shirts, I sell them a Jimmy Buffett lifestyle. Cookbooks. Music. Books I like to read.”
Before I left, Buffett played me a new album he hoped to have out soon. The album was full of a sound even more Caribbean than his previous songs. Although his voice seemed stronger and clearer, it was harder to make out the words because of the heavy calypso beat. The only lyrics I could make out from one side of the album were, “Homemade music sits on very thin ice/Homemade music ain’t on the radio.”
THREE HOURS BEFORE JIMMY Buffett’s concert at the Miami Marine Stadium, the parking lot was filled with the sound of Buffett’s greatest hits coming from the parked cars of the Parrot Heads. The fans were all wearing Hawaiian shirts and Shark Fin or Parrot Head caps and were all partying in the Jimmy Buffett style: beer, peanut butter sandwiches, hot dogs and Cheetos. Most of the tailgaters looked to be in their late 30s and early 40s, big men with beer bellies and women with teased hair, people who could identify with Buffett’s hard-luck stories.
The Miami Marine Stadium is a concrete bandshell covering bleachers that face a barge on Biscayne Bay, where Buffett’s band was already setting up their instruments. There were only a few people in the bandshell, but the waters surrounding the barge were packed with boats of every description. Parrot Heads in bathing suits were hurling water balloons, Nerf footballs and Frisbees from boat to boat. A few of the girls took off the tops of their bathing suits to the cheers of the men. It was a waterlogged bacchanal whose only excuse for being was Jimmy Buffett’s music.
Buffett appeared on stage and began playing a medley of his old hits. His fans stood and sang along. Their voices drowned out Buffett’s, but no one cared.
Buffett ended the show with a rendition of Margaritaville. Then, Florida Senator Bob Graham came on stage to join him. The fans were all singing and swaying. Some were so drunk that they fell off the barge into the dirty water, and security men tried to drag them out. But before they could, Buffett, to solidify his communion with his fans, dived into the bay. He swam around, reaching up from boat to boat to touch everyone’s hands, and then he was pulled back onto the barge by his security guards. When some fans tried to climb up after him, they were pushed back into the water. It looked like a scene from the sinking of the Titanic.
After the concert, I headed back from Key Biscayne to I-95, thinking about Jimmy Buffett’s cult-like hold over his fans. I also thought about the person I was during that winter of 1977 when I found his songs so comforting. In three or four months that winter, I bought every Buffett record I could find — Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes; The Captain and the Kid; and My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Don’t Love Jesus and A Pirate Looks at 40. At the time, I thought the lyrics were so meaningful that Jimmy Buffett must have been a philosopher to have touched me so deeply.
Which was the point. Buffett made me and his other fans feel special because the things he sang about happened to everyone. They were mundane, even a bit ridiculous, the kinds of things people are generally taught to be ashamed of — things like losing one’s girl out of laziness or getting drunk and wrecking someone else’s car. Buffett’s songs elevated our embarrassment over such matters to the level of nobility.
Margaritaville, with its tale of lost love and lost will — and “that frozen concoction that helps me hang on ” — did not merely capture my mood of the moment, my despair; rather, it deepened a mood I had only vaguely felt until I heard the song. It was the perfect fantasy for a self-pitying man.
But by spring, the moods that Buffett’s songs evoked didn’t seem so meaningful anymore. I threw out the blender, along with my self-pitying lassitude, and packed away my Hawaiian shirt. I didn’t throw out the shirt because I
did retain one thing from a winter of listening to Buffett — a desire to live the rest of my life in the warm places he sang about.
In 1983, I moved to Fort Lauderdale. I set up a nice life for myself in the sun, a productive life of work and friends — none of whom, I discovered, spent their days living on sponge cake and sipping margaritas on the front porch swing. Buffett’s picture of life in the tropics didn’t have much relevance for those of us who were actually living and working there, and, in fact, the only time I noticed anyone listening to Jimmy’s music or drinking his frozen concoction was during the tourist season. The local bands that played by the pool bars and in the discos would trot out their Hawaiian shirts and start off each set with a maddening rendition of Margaritaville — much to the delight of the snow-belt tourists getting whacked out of their gourds on margaritas. It was their turn to fantasize about wooden shacks and front porch swings while they coughed up $300 a night for their hotel rooms.
