Speaker 1: Hey, Shirley fans, it's Bomber back again to introduce my
friends and hosts of the Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast,
Jason Colvin and James D.
Speaker 2: Graves.
Speaker 1: Grab your flipflops, pour yourself something with a tiny umbrella,
and prepare your taste buds for cheeseburgers in paradise, because
today we're diving into the sun soaked, salt rimmed world
of the one and only Jimmy Buffett Take us away
to Margueritaville.
Speaker 2: Boys, Welcome back.
Speaker 3: To the Shirley You Can Be Serious Podcast, everybody. I
don't know if you've noticed how festive we are at
the moment, but we are here to talk about a
freaking lifestyle, right End's up? Baby, Yeah, there are so
many quotable moments throughout this guy's life and songs and
you just can't beat it. And special game for you today. Okay,
we're going to do the Lost Shaker of Salt game
at some point during the podcast. I can't tell you
when Salt Shaker shall appear. It probably won't be around
for very long, but pay close attention if you are,
oh one of the first three people in the comments
who can tell me the time signature of when the
Salt Shaker showed up. I'll send you free T shirt. Free.
Surely you can't be serious T shirt. Let's go yes
from our new Merche store. Well, so we're going to
sort of yes. I go one. I fixed one problem
and I've got to fixed the other problem, but the
two can't communicate together for some reason. I haven't fixed
that problem yet, but I can still order you a
T shirt on my own send it to you, no problem.
Just pay attention for the Salt Shaker. All right, All right,
Chirley listeners, if this is your first time here, we
compare two monumental albums. The first one that we talked
about in our last episode was the album Eagle's Greatest
Hits Volume one. That's right, an incredible album, arguably the
best selling album of all time. We're pairing it up,
matching it up, if you will, with Jimmy Buffett's Greatest Hits,
which I think there's been a lot of cool swings
at making a creative Greatest Hits album title. This wins
the game far and away. Calling it songs you Know
by heart is just pure freaking genius. Yeah, that's great.
It's great. So tell me how did you get familiar
with this album?
Speaker 4: Well, my my buddy Bomber in high school was a
big Jimmy Buffett guy. He's the one that kind of
turned me onto it. To me, Jimmy Buffett was this
kind of unknown person because he wasn't on MTV.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I do want to bring up the fact that this
album has two different covers.
Speaker 3: Did you notice that. Yeah, there's one with him laying
back on like a hammock with the guitar in his hand. Yeah,
And the one I had was just the plain yellow
Jimmy Buffett on the cover. Fir Well, I grew up
with the yellow one, so that's classic one. Yeah, I
mean it's certainly. The other one seems to capture the
mood for sure. But which ones you have?
Speaker 4: Well, I like the one with the parrot and the hammock. So,
but that's one thing. We're gonna be talking about a
bunch of different things. We're gona talk about Jimmyuffet, We're
goingna talk about the Eagles, We're gonna talk about these songs.
Give us your opinion on the album cover. Which album
is the classic album cover for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So this album was literally the album that introduced
me to Jimmy Buffett. My brother was in college, and
when you're in college, he basically said, these are songs
that you have to know every word to. Yeah. As
a matter of fact, the name of the Greatest Hits
album is Songs you Know by Heart. And we went
to Hastings and he bought me the tape the cassette,
So I had Songs you Know by Heart nice as
my first exposure to Jimmy Buffett. You know where I
got mine?
Speaker 4: You know those monthly CD clubs. I think it was
mine was BMI, and so I got my Jimmy Buffett
c D through the BMI CD club. I don't think
I paid for it. I don't think I pay for
any of that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I got my ten for a penny or whatever, got
enrolled in the thing and never got the album of
the month or whatever, and just kept sending them back.
All right, Well, let me give you an overview of
this album before we dive into the songs. Just to
refresh everybody, we are comparing Jimmy Buvett's Greatest Hits Songs
you Know by Heart to the Eagles their Greatest Hits
nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy five. You enjoy your
Cheezburger and Paradise over there?
Speaker 3: Good okay.
Speaker 4: So this album has sold over five million copies in
the United States. When Jimmy died in September of twenty
twenty three, this album peaked at number four on the
Billboard two hundred and according to Jimmy himself, he's just
a Catholic ultar boy who wanted to play bass and
meat chicks.
Speaker 3: Speaking of passing away, I think is important to note,
as we're talking beach music, right, we are recording this
on the day of the passing of one of the
biggest icons in music history. Little moment of silence for
Brian Wilson, the founding and pivotal member of the Beach Boys.
God rest his soul. I think he's in a better
spot now. Yep. Time to jump into the first song,
which speaking of pines fifty seven, Cheezburger and.
Speaker 5: Paradise tried doing Carnivers Abbott.
Speaker 6: Seven eight.
Speaker 4: All right d So This song was released as the
first single off The Son of a Son of a Sailor,
as his eighth album, released in nineteen seventy seven. This
song reached number thirty two on the Hot one hundred
June seventeenth of nineteen seventy eight, pretty close to the
anniversary to that. We're June tenth today, so the Hot
one hundred that week June seventeenth, nineteen seventy.
Speaker 3: Eight June eleventh. Just in case people think we had
a premonition about the death of Brian Wilson.
Speaker 4: So here's your top seven from June seventeenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Number seven feels so good Chuck MANGIONI. I love that song.
That was almost on my Best of seventy eight. Number
six Take a Chance on Me by Abba. Number five
Too Much, Too Little, Too Late by Johnny Mathis and
Denise Williams. Okay, do you remember the last time we
talked about Johnny Mathis and Denise Williams singing a song together?
Speaker 3: Believe it was the TV theme songs TV theme songs.
Speaker 4: They sang the Groin Pains theme together.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 4: Number four, It's a Heartache by Bonnie Tyler. Number three
Baker Street by Jerry Rafferty.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 4: Number two You're the One that I Want by John
Travolta and Olivia Newton. John and number one Shadow Dancing
by Andy Gibb.
Speaker 3: Most of those are absolute bangers that stood the test
of time.
Speaker 4: Yes, all right, I've got the description of this burger,
but before I give that to you, tell me the
story on how he came to have this cheeseburger in Paradise.
Speaker 3: Before I get into that, I just have to say
the line at the beginning. It doesn't sound like this story, right.
It sounds like he's he was on a diet. Right,
He's losing weight without speed eating sunflower seeds. And when
I first got this album and I was listening to
those words and trying to learn them all by heart,
I was like, how do you speed eat sunflower seeds?
It's like speed walking? What is that? Right? Yes? No,
losing weight without speed period beat the drug. Yes, that's
what he was talking about that I was a little
too young to understand all of that. So he is
not speed eating. He is losing weight without speed eating
sunsiulet with flower seeds. So this story comes from kind
of accident that he had on his boat that he bought,
the Euphoria, And this boat is kind of a I mean,
it's an iconic moment in his life. He got. He
got this at a point that he had finally made
enough money to buy a boat, and so he bought
a boat, and his you know, his accountant was just like,
this is please, don't do this, and he's thinking of
Aerol Flynn's accountant, who literally tried to do everything he could.
Speaking of Errol Flynn will come up a little bit
later in the same swave Aerol Flynn and the Chikh
of Arab Anyway, apparently Aero Flynn's accountant on his deathbed
said tell tell Errol, I'm sorry, and that was his
last words that he dropped dead. So his account knew
this the story, and he was like, this is not you.
You shouldn't do this, but this was this was his
purchase of freedom, right. He wanted a place that was
completely his own, that a bank couldn't take away from him,
and that he could use to go anywhere in the
world he wanted to go. Unfortunately, going anywhere you want
to go sometimes put you in places that you may
not want to be. And so he got stuck on
this ship for a long period of time trying to
get out of the problem, and all he had was
basically like canned food and some peanut butter, and so
he eventually gets the ship back in order. They make
it to a place called Cabbage Key. It's down obviously
in the Caribbean around the Keys, and Cabbage Key had
a little in called the Cabbage Key In. And at
the Cabbage Key In there was a restaurant that served
burgers with lettuce and tomato. Heinz fifty seven French fried potatoes,
big kosher pickle, and a cold glass beer.
Speaker 4: You know, I heard him talk about this. He said
that the bun was burned and the burger was charred black,
but it tasted like manna from heaven, just having access
to an American cheeseburger after living on canned food in
the open ocean.
Speaker 3: So the Cabbage Key In it's still open and it's
still operating really and you can go there, but you
can't drive there. Okay. It is on an island called
Pine Island Sound. It's one hundred acre island. It's near
Fort Myers, Florida. But you can only get there by boat,
helicopter or seaplane. That's it. Can you swim? I couldn't.
It was. It was built in the forties by the
family of Mary Roberts. Ryan Hart. It is historic obviously
for this song. Still there covered in dollar dollar bills
from people who would visit. And you know, I've been
to those places too. There's a place in Destined that
I go to that has that kind of feel to it.
I would love to go there. Yeah, and get a
cheeseburger in Paradise. Yep, no TVs, phones in the rooms,
just basic, who cares? Yeah? Love it? Yeah, awesome, really
getting away? Yeah, I would love to that. I am
sure that a lot of parrotheads have visited that local
quite sure.
Speaker 4: Yes, Okay, So I wanted to tell you I think
I tell you this today. There is a big misheard
lyric in this song.
Speaker 3: You blew my mind with this same okay? Did I
have no idea about that? All right?
Speaker 4: So when he's describing the burger, here's the description that
you get.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So it's a huge burger on a warm bun with
an onion slice, lettuce, tomato, HEINZ fifty seven sauce, with
French fries, and a big kosher pickle. Of course, a
cold draft beer. But he mentions that it has munster,
not mustard. Most people think it says mustard. Hmm, apparently
this was a misheard lyric number one, but also a
typo in the print of the lyrics to this song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can see why they made the typo because
it sounds like mustard.
Speaker 4: It sounds like mustard number one, and it also makes
a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because mustard you put on a cheeseburger. Not many
people using munster cheese. Munster cheese is what he wants
on his cheeseburger. It's kind of a bland cheese. I mean,
it's not would I would, I'd pick cheddar.
Speaker 4: I did you don't need mustard when you got heines
fifty seven?
Speaker 3: Okay, song number two, beautiful song. He went to Paris.
Speaker 7: He went to Paris looking for answers to questions.
Speaker 2: And bothered and so.
Speaker 8: He was impressive, young, an aggressive.
Speaker 5: Saving the world on his own.
Speaker 9: Warm summer Breeze is French wines and cheeses, but his ambition.
Speaker 4: This is off the album A White sport Coat and
a pink crustacean.
Speaker 3: Okay, So before we dive into the song, that album
name is an interesting one, right. It is based upon
the country song A White sport Coat and a pink carnation.
He had a little bit of trouble with fitting in
with the country music scene, which is way why he
basically developed his own complete genre of music all by himself.
But that was a little satire of the white sport
coat and a pink carnation.
Speaker 4: Marty Robbins is the guy who wrote that yeah, which
is a great song.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I heard him talk about how he spent five terrible
years in Nashville before he discovered Key West.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean it's really funny because that had to be
such a pivotal time in his life. He was working
for Billboard magazine at that time, right, doing reports on
songs instead of being a full time musician. But I mean,
hey is paying bills, and he was meeting all kinds
of people who could help him out in his quest
to become a musician, right. And so he ended up
going a few different places, traveling around of course, and
living in a few places at that time as well.
But one of the places he traveled to was a
place called Chicago. Don't know why I said place called, Like,
people don't know where Chicago is. This place you may
not have heard of it. It's a little town. It's
up in Illinois. It's called Chicago. Okay, So anyway, he
runs into a guy who's this kind of local hero,
so to speak, in Chicago, guy named Eddie Bolchowski. Now
Eddie Bolchowski is a guy who was going to be
a concert pianist. And he was a pianist when he
at whenever he met Jimmy Buffett, but he had moved
out of he and his family moved out of Europe.
He was Jewish and had had faced a lot of
stereotypes and racism because of that, and so they moved
to Illinois. And then as he got older, he became
very good at piano, was going to probably become a
concert pianist. But then news came out of the Spanish
Civil War over in Spain, right, and so it was
this big you know, the fascists against the Republicans, and
he felt this kinship with the Republicans and their fight,
and so he went over there and enlisted, you know,
basically in the American side of the international military over
there called the Lincoln's and he helped the Republicans fight
against the fascists. And at some point during that time,
a sniper shot him through his wrist and he had
to have basically his hand and most of his forearm amputated,
which obviously effectively ends your chances of becoming a concert pianist.
But then he goes back to the United States. Ultimately,
later on, you know, when he's closer to the end
of his life, he says, you know, he's talking about
his lost arm. He said, I gained more by going
and fighting that fight than I lost. I learned more,
became more. But when he got back he would have
phantom pain in his missing arm. Got involved with drugs,
and got addicted to drugs, and then got involved with
the bohemian lifestyles of the day, and ultimately ended up
in prison. Really yeah, served a couple of years in
prison on a drug charge. But while he's there, he
meets this guy named last name's Crump. I can't remember
his first name, but he's this guy on death row,
and he's just amazed at how intelligent this guy is.
He was a guy who was you know, from Chicago,
who had killed a security guard at a messed up
robbery attempt, right, Okay, So he persuades them to give
this guy a typewriter so that he can write down
his story. And this guy types up a biography of
his life, and it gets published the name of its Burn,
Killer Burn, and it's his life of growing up in
these hard times and how he led him to a
life of crime and all this stuff. And ultimately, because
of all of that, because of Eddie Bolzowski's helping him
out and him writing this book, he ultimately gets pardoned
and gets released from prison in the early nineties. Wow.
So back to Eddie Bolczowski because he had become such
a kind of eccentric character. You know, once he's out
of prison, he's had not only multiple stories written about him,
he's had multiple songs. This is just one of very
many songs that he had written about him. But it was,
you know, his journey to Paris to find out what
life is really about.
Speaker 4: Do you remember the last time we talked about a
one armed pianist.
Speaker 3: No, but I feel like the punchline was it takes
some two minutes to play the one Jaws the revenge.
Speaker 4: All right, So I've got some tidbits for you on
this song.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Jimmy Buffett says this is one of his favorite songs
that he ever wrote. Waylon Jennings covered this song in
nineteen eighty Now, Jimmy Buffett at the time rarely played
this live until he heard that Bob Dylan was playing
a cover of it at his concerts.
Speaker 3: Oh wow. And he was just.
Speaker 4: Astounded that Bob Dylan even knew who he was, never one,
and that he liked his song, right okay yea. And
he said, this is before the internet, so he couldn't
It's not like he could go on YouTube and look
at the video of him doing it. And so he
was just taken aback that Bob Dylan would do this.
So later on he meets up with Bob Dylan in
Saint Bart's.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, nice.
Speaker 4: So they spend the day together on their boat okay,
and they go fishing and they sing and they get
stoned all day long and they have this.
Speaker 3: Great day together.
Speaker 4: And so Jimmy feels like he and Bob are like, hey,
we're buddies, you know. We spent the day together, Yeah,
hanging out, partying, having a great time. And so a
few years later, Tom Petty is playing in Paris, and
so went to Paris. So Jimmy goes to Paris to
see Tom Petty play. Well, he finds out that Bob
Dylan is backstage and they have a co friend who's
in charge of security, and he sends word to Jimmy.
He's like, hey, Bob's going to be backstage once you
come back and hang out.
Speaker 3: And Jimmy's like, well, heck, yeah, Bob's my buddy. Height
We hung out, we fished, we sang, we did drugs together.
It was great. And when he goes back there, he's like, hey, Bob,
how you doing, man, he said. Bob goes, eh, so
just a grunt, okay. He said, well, what's going on, Bob,
haven't seen you a long time. You're doing okay? And
that's it. That was their in direction.
Speaker 4: Weird, just just Bob Dylan being Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, too much drugging and losing, I think.
Speaker 4: So this song came at a time when Jimmy Buffett
was transitioning from that Nashville country style to the Key
West tropical thing. In two thousand and three, Jimmy called
this a tribute to a guy who knows a lot
about living all right. Next song on the album, the
song is called.
Speaker 3: Finns Fins to the left, Fins to the right, and
You're the only bait in town. So the woman from
Cincinnati has not been officially identified yet, although there have
been flames. What's interesting that relates back to something that
we've talked about before, the inspiration from the songs. A
lot of times, you know, it's just people in the audience.
As you're watching people get stoned and drink too much,
all of a sudden, the sharks get a little hungry,
if you know what I mean, right, And so there's that.
But he said he also would see people on the
beach and specifically referred to Montserrat.
Speaker 4: This song was from the album Volcano, which was recorded
which was recorded at Montserrat, and of course the title
Volcano is in reference to the giant volcano at Monterret.
Speaker 3: Obviously, we'll talk about that at the very last song
of the album, but we talked about that one before
a couple of times. We talked about it when we
talked about the.
Speaker 4: Police, the police recorded Goes to the Machine and Synchronicity
in Montserrat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go go check out Synchronousy episode in season one,
I think. But we just got finished talking about it
when we talked about Dire Straits, Brothers and Arms. Yeah,
we are still waiting from that.
Speaker 4: Patreon member to come through with a couple of plane
tickets to Monsterrat.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, And speaking of that, we had somebody after
our Dire Straits episode who would I would describe as
a Dire Straits super fan tell us how much you
liked the show. But his name is Tom Marvin, and
he let us know that actually they got the Neve
soundboard out of the recording studio, so we can't that's
that mystery is solved. But I'd still go down there
to check it out with if somebody bought his plane ticket.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, it's cool that they save the knee board though,
And thanks Tom for sending that to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do you really appreciate you, Tom, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: All Right, So I want to tell you this song
is a part of the Big Eight. Every band has
its staple songs, right, You're never gonna go to an
Aerosmith song and they not play dream On or.
Speaker 3: Sweet Emotion, right, Okay, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: Jimmy Buffett has these eight songs that he's always going
to be playing. So the Big Eight are Marguerite de Ville,
which we'll talk about here in a second. Come Monday,
which we'll talk about here in a second, Finns volcano,
a pirate looks at forty cheese burger in Paradise, Why
don't we get drunk? And changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes.
Speaker 3: I don't think you should be allowed to say the
song title why don't We Get Drunk without saying the
four don't we get drunk? And screw.
Speaker 4: I don't know if you've ever seen any concert footage,
but they the fans have a dance, like a choreographed
dance song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a it's a.
Speaker 4: They all do the fins to the right, their fence
to the left, fence to the right, and it's all
this kind.
Speaker 3: Of I am glad to say I did get to
go to one Jimmy Buffett concert. Yeah, I did. It
was It's probably been eight years ago. I guess that
really down in Frisco, Texas. Oh Mans show down in Frisco, Texas.
I was there. Hit me up by the way.
Speaker 4: This reached number thirty five in November of nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: This is his last.
Speaker 4: Solo song to hit the top forty. So the week
that this song hit number thirty five in nineteen seventy nine,
I got to rattle these off to you because there's
some interesting names on this list.
Speaker 3: Is seventy nine. Last one was seventy eight. This is
seventy seve this is November of seventy nine. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 4: So number eleven is Please Don't Go by Caseying the
Sunshine Band. Do you remember when we last talked about
that song?
Speaker 3: No Okay?
Speaker 4: On a Phil Collins episode, I asked you trivia question,
what was the first number one song in the nineteen eighties?
Speaker 3: Right? And it was Yes, I got you, Please Don't Go? Okay.
Speaker 4: Number ten was No More Tears not Ozzy Osbourne, right,
Barbara streisand.
Speaker 3: Barbara streisand No More Tiers? Okay? Yeah. Nine You Decorated
My Life by Kenny Rodgers. Okay.
Speaker 4: Number eight Tusk by fleetwood Man.
Speaker 3: That's a banger.
Speaker 4: Number seven Babe by Styx.
Speaker 3: Nice. You talked about that one. Number six Don't Stop
Till You Get Enough Michael Jackson. That's the best song
on the album.
Speaker 4: Number five Still by the Commodoores.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Number four Rise by Herb Albert. Okay, Number three Dim
All the Lights by Donna Summer.
Speaker 3: I don't remember that one.
Speaker 4: Number two Heartache Tonight.
Speaker 3: By the Eagles. Ah, there you go.
Speaker 4: And number one talk about pop music.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, what a terrible song. How is that
a number one song? I had no idea. It's awful,
all right. Next song on the album this is son
of a Son of a sailor. So I love this
just because it's so true to his life. So his grandfather,
James D.
Speaker 4: I believe Delaney. Yeah, James Delaney Buffett.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just love that. He's James D. Like me.
So he was a sailor. He was a guy who
he could not sit still. Born in the late eighteen hundreds.
But he, like he said, I got to get out
of this place. Carled out of his room at like
sixteen years old or something and went and got on
a ship and started sailing. Very very call me Ishmael
Moby Dick.
Speaker 4: He was born in Canada and he moved to Mobile, Alabama.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so he'd lived in all kinds of places,
had all kinds of adventures on the sea, and he
would share this with his young grandson, Jimmy. Jimmy even
points out in his book he was closer with his
grandfather than he was with his dad. His dad wanted
him to go to the military. His dad was more
straightly laced. But he loved the stories that he would
hear from his grandfather. And there was this big pivotal
moment in his life where his grandfather takes him out
to a peer I think near Mobile where he grew up.
He shows him a map and just his pointing to
all of these different amazing places that he's been and
that are you know, incredible places to go, and he
says and points, sit here we are, and it basically
shows you the route you can go from this spot
to get to all of those places. And that was
such an eye opening experience for him. It and molded
his whole life. It's fantastic. Yeah, love it. So here's
his quote on this song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've always been proud of my heritage as a sailor,
and I wrote this for the man that.
Speaker 3: Taught me those skills.
Speaker 4: Also, the song The Captain and the Kid was written
about his grandfather as well. This was the lead single
off of the album Son of a Son of a
Sailor from nineteen seventy eight. But what I've been dying
to get off my chest. I sent you this nugget
this week. Do you remember where Jimmy Buffett got married?
To his second wife, Jane.
Speaker 3: You sent this to me. You know, we text each other,
that's what we do. And he couldn't he could not
wait for this. He deliterally could not wait. He had
to tell me. I was kind of blowing you up, right.
You were like, do you know where Jimmy got married?
And I was like, I don't know, Denver. I was
just guessing because I know the story with Jane and
that whole deal. So I was like, Denver, and it
wasn't far off. You were pretty close. Yeah, it was Aspen.
It was Aspen. But there's more to the story.
Speaker 4: He got married in Aspen at Glenn Fry's house.
Speaker 3: Glenn Fry, who was a member of the Eagles, whose
album we were comparing to. This album absolutely Glenn Fry
one of the main singers of the Eagles, and we
did not know this before we started this matchup. So
it's just it's awesome when we find these little connections,
just like you did with Timothy B. Schmid and the
Parrot Heads, right, it's love it. I love it. I
love it.
Speaker 4: So he and Glenn Fry were good friends. They had
the wedding at his house. I told you Hunter s
Thompson and his wife were there.
Speaker 3: Hunter S.
Speaker 4: Thompson and Jimmy Buffett were good friends. When Hunter S
Thompson and his wife were splitting up and it was
a bad deal and he was kind of a mess, Jimmy,
in true blue friend fashion, said hey, come down, hang
out with me and Key West. We'll fish, we'll hang
out and just come in and recover.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 4: It was really a friend helping a friend who is
kind of desperate at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, then I did have another story where Jimmy let
another person kind of crash at his pada, except he
wasn't in town, so it was a house sitting situation.
And then this person proceeded to have a party and
then had unwanted guests and then they got out of
control and they trashed his place. When Jimmy returned and
saw what had happened to his apartment, he wrote a
song called Gypsy's at the Palace. I love that song,
and he and Glenn Fry wrote that song together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome, all right.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album Let's Do It A Pirate
looks at forty.
Speaker 7: Mother Mother ros.
Speaker 10: I've heard you call, wanted to say upon you since
I was three feet tone.
Speaker 9: You seen it, you seen it all.
Speaker 5: Watch the man who wrote you.
Speaker 7: Switchman, seeste.
Speaker 9: In You, Belly you, the treasures he hev seen most
of the dreams, most of.
Speaker 3: Dream Okay, this one I think might tie for second
place for me for favorite songs on the album. Interesting. Okay,
here's my concern about this song written in nineteen seventy four, right,
that would make Jimmy Buffett less than thirty. How is
how is he a pirate looking at forty if he's
less than thirty?
Speaker 4: Well, because this song was written about a friend of
his named Phil Clark.
Speaker 3: Rusty rusty Yeah what they called him, Phil Rusty Clark. Yeah?
Speaker 4: Okay, so this guy was a card player, gambler, scoundrel.
Speaker 3: You'd like him? Yeah, I think nice. I think this
guy probably was less of a friend and more a
guy he met in a bar one night. He was
the guy who was who was staring down the barrel
of forty or maybe a little over forty. His history
is a little murky because well, he was smuggling his
share of grass. This was nineteen seventies. This was the
cocaine cowboy era where like all kinds of drugs come in,
especially into Key West. Basically, Buffet, Jimmy Buffett got offered,
you know, hey, one run and you're gonna make more
money than you do all years singing songs. And I
think he did accept that. I think he denies that
he accepted that. I think he said he didn't actually
run any drugs, okay, but no square flounders for him. Yeah.
The guy that he was talking to was just he
literally said, you know, had I been born one hundred
years earlier, I would have been a pirate. I missed
my I missed my era, and I've been drunk for
over two weeks. Now, how about that? Here you go.
Speaker 4: So they met at the chart Room, which is a
bar and Key West, which I think there's kind of
a come thread throughout a lot of these songs. Jimmy
was a great storyteller and he would gather these stories
by talking to people at the bars in Key West.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I didn't know this at the time.
Speaker 4: Almost a year ago today, I was in Key West
and I had a wonderful time there.
Speaker 3: It was really cool.
Speaker 4: And Jimmy Buffett's presence in Key West, it's felt he
has got a studio right there that is right by
the restaurants.
Speaker 3: I stood right outside of it.
Speaker 4: But Phil Clark's some of Phil Clark's ashes are kept
behind the cash register at the chart room still in
Key West.
Speaker 3: Really. Oh, that's fascinating. That's good one. Pretty cool. Once again,
this song is one of the Big eight. Ah, yes,
of course, yeah, I mean god, this is such such
a good song. It's a great song, great story. Yeah,
and made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed
it away so fast. Is an interesting idea because this
was written in the seventies when Jimmy Buffett was just
barely emerging. But something happens and by the time he
passes away, he has enough money to buy Miami. It's
worth over a billion dollars. Yeah, at the time of
his death. Yeah, hovering right there, around a billion. That's
a lot. But how did he get there? Right? Was
it all just from these amazing songs? It was not
from recordize for sure. Well, I guess our next song
may answer the question for us. Next song on the
album You've been waiting for it. This is a big one.
Speaker 6: Marguerite Deville Sponge Gig.
Speaker 3: You can't deny the vibe, Boys and girls.
Speaker 4: This is a perfect Jimmy Buffetts song.
Speaker 3: It truly is, and it defines him. It literally defines him.
Or yeah, and here's a great thing. So this song
comes from a real moment in his life. He was
having lunch at or dinner or maybe both at Lungs
Cosina del cur right down in Austin, Texas, and he
actually like lost one of his flip flops. Where's the salt?
And so he is notorious and I'll tell more stories later,
but he is notorious for losing things. It used to
be that like whenever he would come in to see
his agent, the agent told his secretary, your job when
Jimmy comes in is to make sure you get his keys,
because if you didn't get him from him, he'd get
up and he would have lost them. Every single time.
He just always was losing his keys, or his salt shaker,
or his flip flop. And so he had had been
drinking heavily. He lost his flip flop. He's trying to
walk home and he literally cuts his heel on a
pop top, remember those pop tops, wheel Those suckers were
pretty sharp cut piece of metal. Right there is what
you got. So I don't remember whether this was producer
or his manager who was. But he calls him and
he's like, hey, Jimmy, you know what you doing? And
he's like, well, I was having lunch, had few too
many Margarita has lost my flip flop, cut my heel
on pop top. I'm actually, you know, I got stuck
in traffic. I started writing a song about it, and
he and whoever it was he was talking to, he
literally said, that's a terrible idea for a song. You
should skip that and move on to something else. Can
you imagine had he listened, right, had he listened, the
events that would unfold that would lead to his billionaire
status would not might not have happened.
Speaker 5: Wistin away again and of.
Speaker 3: It searching for.
Speaker 4: Okay, So I told you on the way over here,
I heard a story that it's kind of widely regarded
as the most.
Speaker 3: Profitable song of all time.
Speaker 4: Used to be White Cristmas by Big Crosby, But it
is now basically understood that Margaritaville is the most profitable
song of all time.
Speaker 3: There's no way that White Christmas is worth a billion
dollars right.
Speaker 4: This song launched Casinos Hotels, flip Flop company, restaurants.
Speaker 3: I mean, we started with restaurants. Restaurants were first, and
then it would just blossom into you know, all kinds
of retirement homes. It became a retirement community, like all
of the parrot Heeads want to retire into into the
Margaritaville retirement village where they can go have their four
o'clock lunch to dinner at cheeseburgers and paradise. It's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, who doesn't love I mean, if you don't like
Jimmy Buffett, if you're like, hey.
Speaker 3: The Eagles are way better.
Speaker 4: Whatever, you don't like beat strips, you don't like hanging
out and having done well.
Speaker 3: It's and we'll talk about more when we're given our
final judgment, but we're talking about the difference between great
music and music that gives you a lifestyle, like gives
you a glimpse of something you want. Yes, and that's
why this Margaritaville was brand was so incredibly profitable. Right.
Everybody wants that flavor, They want that lifestyle that Jimmy
Buffett had and told the stories about and wrote songs
about and wrote books about. And yah, I mean, in
doing this research, I'm just like man, I just want
to go sit on the patio at Louis and just
have a margarita. Just you know, I'll read a pirate
looks at fifty and just enjoy my day. This song
was covered by Sammy Hagar and Toby Keith. Yeah Native Norman,
Oklahoma and Toby Keith. God rest his soul, by the way,
I used to play softball against him. Nice.
Speaker 4: So this song hit number eight on the Hot one hundred,
so it's his biggest hit.
Speaker 3: Uh Huhkay.
Speaker 4: Now I'm like, why didn't this song reach higher? I
still think it should have been higher, And then I
look at what's in front of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm certain that it should have been higher.
Speaker 4: Okay, So this is the the Hot one hundred from
July twenty third, nineteen seventy seven. Number seven Undercover Angel
by Alan O'Day No idea? What number six Angel in
Your Arms by Hot Number five My Heart Belongs to Me,
Barbar streisand number four I'm in You Peter Frampton.
Speaker 3: Peter may not know if Sweet Sweet Connie is to
be believed. Number three The Do Run Run by.
Speaker 4: Sean Cassidy Gosh, okay, and now I'm recognizing some of
these names, but don't tell me these songs are better
than Margeritaville. Number two, I just want to be here
Everything by Andy Gibb and number one looks like we
made it.
Speaker 3: By Barry Manilow. Wow, Wow, Margeriteville. That should have been
a number one hit. Yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 4: I saw Jimmy Buffett on Johnny Carson, I think it
was Johnny Carson. It was one of those late night
talk shows, and he said, there's a third verse that
we cut out to make the single, you know, a
little bit shorter, and he played it for him.
Speaker 3: You want to hear the lyrics to this? Yeah, okay,
here you go. This is kind of fun.
Speaker 4: It says old men and tank tops cruising the gift shops,
checking out chakdahs down by the shore. They dream about
weight loss, wish they could be their own boss. Those
three day vacations can be such a bore.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that's kind of even rubbing it in a
little bit, like this is my life and this is
three days out of your year.
Speaker 4: You wish you should have this right, wonderful song, incredible hit.
Stop on your tape player, kick it out, flip it over.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Side two, here we go. We start off with start.
I'm spiking the football on this one. This is the
best song on the album.
Speaker 4: Song Come Monday to.
Speaker 7: San Prancisco, Father, lay of It Weekend.
Speaker 3: This is such a great song. It's a love song.
And you know, most most of Jimmy Buffett's songs, you're
gonna say like this is this three chords in the
truth right, Like I mean, it's just this is just
very simple, simple stuff. But this song really brings it out,
Like the music behind the lyrics on this is really
truly impressive. And then he absolutely makes you feel all
the pain that he felt as a guy who was
young and in love and forced to be away from
his beautiful, beautiful girlfriend. Who would he would later not
not too much later. Mary in Aspen, Colorado and Glenn
Fries that's her house.
Speaker 4: So we talked about the chart room. In Key West
in nineteen seventy two, he met a girl who was
on spring break. She attended the University of South Carolina. Yep,
it was down in Key West. Just for a good time,
and was like, I want to talk to that girl.
Speaker 3: Yeah, her name was Jane. They were married until his death.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they went through a little rocky patch maybe in
the eighties, but it's true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, his his addictions got a little bad
and it got a little rough, but they worked it out.
But he had been married once before he met her,
and that ended in divorce. But yeah, she was I mean,
obviously she's in college. She's i think still maybe even
a teenager at the time that they met, and he's
early twenties. Not you know, it's not inappropriate, but he
is struck by her beauty model, tan, southern charm, you know,
South Carolina girl. Yeah, and she is. She's known to
be the one that grounded him in his kind of
crazy lifestyle of Okay, Jimmy, we can't do that's just
that's just a little too crazy to explain, and and
it sad.
Speaker 2: Look, so.
Speaker 5: Last reason, I just let you go.
Speaker 9: Come London.
Speaker 7: It'll be.
Speaker 9: God Monday, I'll be holding You're tired.
Speaker 2: I spent four lonely days.
Speaker 11: In a brown la and I just want you.
Speaker 3: Back by my side, so he mentions in the song.
Speaker 4: Headed out to San Francisco for a Labor Day weekend show.
That's an actual show. You're going to circle it on
the calendar. That was a real event that happened. Yeah,
he was appearing for Country Joe McDonald and the Lions
Share Club in San Anselmo, okay. And the song was
written at a Howard Johnson's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he had been in LA. He was headed up
to San Francisco, but it was just a miserable experience
for him. He was just unhappy because it wasn't really
a place he wanted to be, and even more unhappy
because he was missing the place so badly that he
did want to be. And they did have plans to
go hiking. And as a matter of fact, I got
my Hush Puppies on. I guess I never was meant
for glitter rock and roll. I've got boat shoes on
right now you look. And when this song was released
in the UK, they wouldn't let them play it on
the radio because I guess the BBC or whoever it
was that governed those kind of things said, well, Hushpuppies
are a named brand and so that means this is
an advertisement, not a song. And so he very quickly
recorded a line for the British audience, I've got my
hiking shoes on instead of my Hush Puppies on. Weird. Yeah,
so there's somewhere out there. There is a a UK
radio version of this song where he says, I've got
my hiking shoes on. Have you seen the video for this? No?
Speaker 4: Okay, so real low budget, like they were broke, they
had no money.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: So Jane's in it, she's a model, she's in it.
Speaker 3: For free because she's his girlfriend.
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, he's driving his truck around, you know, just
they're just kind of dinking around.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a basic music video. Yeah, but
as he was.
Speaker 4: Commenting on the he said, hey, there's my old truck.
That thing got impounded and crushed.
Speaker 3: It's like an old.
Speaker 4: Friend that had died, you don't. Yeah, So beautiful song.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's great. It's one of the Big Eight.
Of course. Of course, of course.
Speaker 4: Next song the album Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.
Speaker 3: This comes from the Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
album of nineteen seventy seven, right, But it's probably about
in the early seventies when he was struggling in Nashville
where they were trying to make him a country singer,
and he was trying to figure out how to do
it and didn't like that they wanted this polished sound,
and he wanted to be more real, more raw. So
eventually he changed his latitude. I think he traveled up
to New York for a time, but then ultimately ended
up down in Key West, where he was fascinated by
the lifestyle, the pirate history, and the yeah, the neat
games that they would have done there. So there I
was reading about one particular game that they had where
it was him. It was him and I think two
or three other guys, you know, it was him and
one other guy and two girls. And it was a
race that involved a boat. But it started at the
bar where you took a shot, and then you had
to run down to the boat where you took a shot,
and then you get the boat in the water, and
then you took a shot, and then you took the
boat out to some booie marker out there, right and
took a shot, and then came back, and the first
one back took a shot and then won the race. Right.
And so by the time they get out on the water,
they're pretty well hammered, right, And so they the guy
that they rented it from was this guy who was
just known to be this total con man that they
rented the boat from. It's Catmarana. Believe he knew these
boats were pieces of crap. He had a little like
little language in his little contract that said, if you
become stranded out on the water, I will come, because
he would rent the boats for like ten bucks or something. Right, right,
he goes, I will, I will come and rescue you
for thirty five dollars, thirty five dollars, right, like, yeah,
thirty five dollars to come and rescue you from the
piece of crap boat that I gave you. So they
get out there on this boat in the middle of
the ocean, and it starts to fall apart on them,
and they're getting it like the current is strong and
they're getting pulled out to see like they don't know
what to do. They're hammered, drunk, the boat's falling apart,
the tide is pulling them out, and they're struggling for
a long time like they are swimming around trying to
figure out can't get it figured out. And then this
ghost ship shows up helps them basically get it back together,
get back on board the boat, and get the boat
going back towards land again. And then just disappears as
though it had never been there before. Wow, yeah, that
sounds cool. Yeah, game, I want to try maybe right right?
You know, I did some in my research.
Speaker 4: I read through Billboard. He met Jerry Jeff Walker. Oh yeah, yeah,
Jerry Jeff Walker was the guy responsible for the song
mister bo Jangles love that song?
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, yep.
Speaker 4: So they become friends. Jimmy struggling, uh huh. And Murphy,
who is Jerry Jeff Walker's girlfriend, says hey, let's take
Jimmy down to Key West for the weekend. That changes
his life, his direction, his career, everything.
Speaker 3: In all likelihood, Jerry Jeff Walker and Murphy were probably
two of the people involved in this little race. Right
by the way.
Speaker 4: The first thing he did when he got to Key
West he went to Mallory Square. Okay, this happens every
night in Key West, every night every night. Okay, people
go there and they watch the sunset.
Speaker 3: Oh it's beautiful. Right. I have been to Key West
once and that was the most memorable thing of the
whole trip was the was the setting sign. Yes, incredible.
Speaker 4: He's looking at the sun set and think this is
my home.
Speaker 3: And he literally struggled for years just a guy playing
a guitar in a bar. When he offered to play,
they're like, nah, I'm good, and he's like, come on,
I will play for tips and drinks and that'd be fine.
And then he played for a couple of months and
they're like, it'll be cheaper to pay you than to
give you all the drinks that you drink every night.
Speaker 4: Right, all right, next time, let's do it. Why don't
we get drunk and screw.
Speaker 2: I really appreciate it.
Speaker 7: Back you sitting here.
Speaker 3: This is the most country of country that you're gonna
get from Jimmy Buffett because he was making fun of them.
Oh that that steel guitar and the violin and that
blinkly honky tonk piano. That is all tongue in cheek
because in Nashville he would see these guys and women
getting absolutely inebriated, hitting on each other, and he's like,
why don't you just say it, Let's just get drunk
and screw. And so he and his friend Buzz Cason
wrote this song together. Right, I got something I think
is about to I'm about to blow your mind here,
right all right, So you know they're making fun of
the country music scene, right. But Buzz Cason was a
guy that was a good friend of Jimmy's and he
was a writer, and they wrote this song together hanging
out like good friends do. But Buzz Cason has also
written several books and even a kid's book called Hoot
that they made a movie out of. I think one
like one of those Newberry Awards or something like that.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: But his most famous work is a book about a
a girl who goes and starts a life as a stripper,
that they made a movie of, starring Burt Reynolds and
Demmy Moore. Strip tease, you got it. The guy who
wrote strip teas wrote why don't we get drunk? And screw.
Speaker 2: Don't we get drunk again?
Speaker 3: Just Wow, you're blowing my socks off. I thought I
might low your socks off with that particular piece of information.
Speaker 4: I don't want to tease this up too early, but
maybe next season we do show girls versus strip Tease.
Speaker 3: We have been talking about it. It's been suggested, and
we are both on board. Just do it. If we gotta,
we gotta do it, we gotta do it. I'll watch it,
you know, I'll watch it again. Although vowing I would
never watch it.
Speaker 4: All right, So the interesting thing to me about this song,
I mean it's kind of like, uh, do you remember
Great White? When we talked about Great White, we talked
about Wasted rock Ranger, just kind of just that kind
of throwaway song.
Speaker 3: But it didn't even make it on the album, right,
that was like a B side. It did not.
Speaker 4: This was on the b side to a song that
wasn't a hit, But when jukebox owners had it on
their juke box, it became a played song so much
so the juke box owners would buy this record a lot. Yeah,
so it became a juke box hit.
Speaker 3: Essentially. I can see being at the bar playing this
song once you've been talking to a girl for a
minute and coming back and see how she reacts to
the music.
Speaker 4: It's on the honey, I'm gonna go play this song.
Speaker 3: Fun song. I love it.
Speaker 4: I kind of want to spike the football in this one. Yeah,
although I'm gonna stick with Margaritaville. This is a lot
of fun.
Speaker 3: It is a lot of fun. It's it's it's the
most memorable I would say, just because of incredibly tasteless
but wonderful title.
Speaker 4: Yes, my buddy Bomber would sing this all the time
in the locker room.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album is a song called Pizzel
Thin Mustache.
Speaker 11: Now they're making movies and all black and white the
happy end and went overbody in the final So if
you find yourself and then studs a great how did
you jump right of and show you ee?
Speaker 3: Did you ever have a not a graph picture of
any divine No? I did not, Okay. So number one
first thing I say is I love the song. It's
one of my favorites. I've loved it since the first
time I heard The first time I heard it on
the tape, I was just like I had to rewind
it kind of vaudeville it. Well, I'm gonna play something
for you. You tell me if it sounds it sounds familiar.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, So that's Alice's Restaurant.
Speaker 3: Yes, So that's I mean, it's to me basically spot
on exactly the chord progression and picking pattern very high.
Alice's Restaurant, which is came out in sixty seven. Arlogethrie
released that in sixty seven, so well before Jimmy wrote
a pencil than Mustache.
Speaker 11: That's flat top dirt it bot convent.
Speaker 10: On the living room, job to come and trying to
gain a little time.
Speaker 5: It's all you want to do is learn how to score.
Speaker 11: You Now, I'm getting old, don't wear underwear, I don't.
Speaker 3: Go to church.
Speaker 4: And he obviously made it his own, right, Yeah, so
I found it interesting. I wrote down sort of the
references he makes in this song. Okay, yeah, these are
all about like his childhood in the fifties.
Speaker 3: Yeah he is. He starts off the song basically saying,
if you're unhappy with the way movies are, right now,
jump on board for the nostalgia train, which is our motto.
Goodness gracious, Yeah, there we go. What we do, pick's
what we do? Yeah, all right.
Speaker 4: So he mentions Boston Blackie, which is a fictional crook,
a pirate from an old TV show Ricky Ricardo, which hey,
Lucy had got something, yeah from Ilo, Lucy uh Andy Devine,
which you talked about.
Speaker 3: I was always kind of partial to Roy Rogers. Actually, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sky's niece Penny. Okay, that's from a TV show
called Sky King.
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't remember that one.
Speaker 4: The niece was played by Gloria Winters. Okay, he mentions Bandstand,
which of course is American bandstand, right, Disneyland, Romar of
the Jungle, which is a fifties TV show, Errol Flynn
you talked about we were going to talk about him.
Speaker 3: The suave of Errol Flynn and the chikh of a
rabbi and Arabi.
Speaker 4: And then Real Cream, which is a hairstyle product.
Speaker 3: A little dabble, do you how about that? Yep? Okay?
Speaker 4: D So this is the third single from his fourth album,
Living and Dying in three Quarters Time.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I got a story about the album. So
they just goten finished recording God's Own Drunk. They're very
happy that this. You know that the album is almost
done right right, And so he and Sammy Criesen and
Chuck Nice, who are both musicians, uh, decide, hey, let's
go get a bottle of Cuervo gold and three straws,
and they both just they all just down, which is
never a good idea, no matter how experienced you are
as a drinker. And so Jimmy says, within fifteen minutes
we were knee crawling drunk. And so what they decided
to do, because of their musicians, is they went to
the flashiest place in town, which was the King of
the Road Hotel, and there's a place set up for
the music of the night. And so they got up
on stage themselves and Sammy pounded out three quarter time
music on the drums, and Jimmy was so drunk that
he couldn't even hit the chords on the guitar. So
then they got what he described as the scream and munchies.
They decided to go get something to eat. When they
go outside, he can't find his rental car. I told
you can't find stuff he loses, including cars all the time.
He's lost his car, and so he and Sammy are
trying to find it, and he's walking around in these
golf shoes. Jimmy's in these golf shoes raw ras, but
he doesn't have the spikes in them, but they still
got those hard things, you know. He sounds like tap
dancer walking around, right, But he's looking for his car
with all these big ol' honkin good old boy trucks around,
and so he decides, I'll just climb up on top
of this Cadillac and see if I can see it
from above, you know. So he's on the hood of
the Cadillac with these golf shoes and he he hears
his voice behind him say get down, boy, you're under arrest,
and he says, you know I ain't. And he runs
and finds Sammy, who's found the Grimlin, and Sammy's in
the driver's seat and he gets in and Jimmy's window
is closed, but Sammy's window is open, and this big
old boy voice comes and he's like, you better get
out of that car, and Jimmy's que I'll kick your ass.
And so this is nineteen seventy four. We are at
the top of technology. This Grimlin would not start unless
you had the seat belts buckled. And they're so drunk
that they can't find the seat belts and get them buckled.
And this guy's in there trying to get them, and
so he's like, he's like you, I'll kick your ass.
And the guy reaches in and grabs the back of
his his head with by the hair and yanks it
out like he looked like he looked like a monk
pulled out a bunch of blonde hair. And so Sammy
as he's grabbing his hair, Sammy's doing anything he can.
He grabs a ballpoint.
Speaker 2: Pin and he starts stabbing.
Speaker 3: I've in this guy's arm and so finally he gets
the car started. They get out of there and they're thinking, okay,
well we made it out of that mess. Well, at
the time that they're out there doing this stuff, there
was some prosecutor's convention going on and this guy was
actually a legit law enforcement And after they've been gone
a bit, they're like, this dude's probably still looking for us,
and we got to go back and get our stuff.
So they go to the hotel room they managed to
make it through. They think, okay, before we go in,
we got to get something to protect ourselves because this
guy might be hiding in the bushes or swimming in
the pool. We're just ready to grab us. So they
grab a tire iron out of the back of the Grimlin.
So they walk through amongst all of these law enforcement
guys who are there for this convention, and they get
up to their room and he's lost the keys. So
Sammy says, you got us in this, you're gonna have
to get us out, and so he's like okay, So
he takes the tire iron, puts it in his back pocket,
goes back down, goes to the desk clerk and he's like,
I need the keys to you know, eight twelve or
whatever his room number is. And all of a sudden,
this old boy pulls the tire iron out of his
back pocket and he whips around and he's like, hey,
I was bringing that for you for my protection.
Speaker 2: You can't give me that back.
Speaker 3: And the guy and the old boy's like, no, I
ain't gonna do. He's like, fuck you, I'll still kick
your ass. And all of a sudden, these two detectives
grab him and pull him and they pull him into
the elevator and the two detections are like, normally we
be arresting you right now, but right now we figure
you're just lucky to be alive. Do you know who
that was? And he's like no, and they said that
was Beauford Pusser and he goes eighth floor. Please, So
if you don't know who Buford Pusser is, he was
one of the at the time the youngest elected chair
former professional wrestler who became one of the youngest elected
sheriffs who then like set out to end the Dixieland
Mafia and the State Line mob and like they put
hits out of him. He literally killed his wife as
he was driving along with her, shot at him, killed her,
like hit his jaw. He had to have multiple shirt
surgeries to get it corrected. He killed a few folks.
And if if you think that, I'm just you know,
like this is no big deal. They made a movie
about him called Walking Tall, Walking Tall. Yeah, how about that? Yeah,
so that was the That's the guy, the Walking Tall guy.
Buford Pusser was the guy that ripped jim As Jimmy
was having his airpolt. He's like, Sammy, I don't want
to die in a grimlin.
Speaker 4: I love the eighth floor pave.
Speaker 3: Okay, fantastic, Yeah, what a great story that was, all right.
Next song on the album Let's do It. Next song Grapefruit,
Juicy Fruit.
Speaker 7: Grapefruit the bandsuit je a little juicy freud.
Speaker 3: Okay. So this song was written in Key West.
Speaker 4: During the days, he would play at this place called
Howie's Lounge Bar, and at night.
Speaker 3: He would work a fishing boat.
Speaker 4: But he would meet these girls on the Conk tour train,
which is a prominent way of seeing Key West. And
so he'd meet these girls and he would they would
give them purple passion that was mixed in a jug,
and these girls would.
Speaker 3: Be like, oh, this is great. You can't even taste
the alcohol.
Speaker 4: And he's like, we know, but he would take him
to the Islander Drive in uh huh. And this particular
song was written on a night that he saw the
movie Payday starring Ripped Torn. Okay, at the Islander Drive
in theater, at the.
Speaker 3: Girl corn from beast Master, Yes, men in black.
Speaker 4: Yes, the girl was from Saint Petersburg and she was
running away from a bad boyfriend. And the popcorn was
salty and the.
Speaker 3: Beer was cold. Sounds like a great time.
Speaker 4: Grapefruit, juice fruit, taking advantage of these tourist girls.
Speaker 3: You're not taking advantage of them. There's a reason they're
down there, all right. Next song on the album, yep,
this one. I love this This boat drinks.
Speaker 8: Drinks in a band boat drink business.
Speaker 3: Okay, Jimmy stuck somewhere. He don't want to be Boston
in February. So yeah, so this is It's tough. It's
tough call on this one because in seventy eight and
seventy nine, which is around this time the time this
was written, Boston had one of the worst snowstorms of
all time, like a Lizard of seventy eight, which I
think they're like twenty one inches of snow. And then
in seventy nine they had like the coldest temperatures ever
recorded in history there, and I think Jimmy got stuck
up there and had to watch hockey, which nobody cares.
Speaker 4: Stuck in Boston, all you can do is watch hockey
and think about home.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, he was just dying to get home. He was
freezing his butt off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he said.
Speaker 4: He came out and he's been at a bar. Derek
Sanderson used to play for the Boston Bruins. He was
at his his bar, came outside, couldn't find a cab.
The only cab around was this one right here that's
got the keys in it and is running, but there's
nobody in it.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: And so he's like, huh, well, it's better to ask
forgiveness than best permission.
Speaker 3: Jumped in that cab, drove it to his hotel.
Speaker 4: He said, I may have did a bad thing, but
I did leave the fair in the seat right.
Speaker 3: I did see where he played this.
Speaker 4: He had an album live at Fenway Park, and he said,
I cannot come to Boston and not play this song.
Speaker 3: The song was written in Boston.
Speaker 4: It's written about Boston and a friend of the show,
Doug Huggin.
Speaker 3: He my old college roommate.
Speaker 4: He's from the Boston area, and he took me to
Boston in February a couple of years ago, and.
Speaker 3: It was cold twenty degrees. It was freaking freezing. You
see some holes in your freezer.
Speaker 4: It made me think about broad drinks, that's for sure. Yeah, okay,
last song on the album. This song is called Volcano.
Speaker 10: Now a don't no, don't don't, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go in the vom Let me say, okay,
I love this one. This is definitively He has a
quote at the beginning of his book, and I can't
remember precisely what it is, but it's basically, it's like,
you can't have fun unless you take some risks. And
so here they are. They're in Manserrat and they're recording
an album. They're in this beautiful Caribbean island, beautiful women,
beautiful beaches, beautiful water. Everything's awesome. But over your shoulder
there's a volcano just waiting to erupt. You know.
Speaker 4: We talked about this in our Dire Straits episode. So
this is at the ai R Studios owned by George Martin,
the guy who was the producer for the Beatles. Yeah,
and you had all these wonderful albums that were made there,
include Volcano by Jimmy Buffett, Brothers in Arms, Synchronicity, Ghost
in the Machine, Steel Wheels by the Rolling Stones was
made there. Elton John recorded an album there. It was
quite the place until one day when the volcano did blow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course that was it blew And was it
ninety five, ninety four, ninety five, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 4: And so but that was after the Hurricane Hugo I
think just wiped out the.
Speaker 3: Air, right. Yeah, it sealed the deal for him, right yep.
And so because you said after the hurricane, maybe it
was George Martin said that there were eleven or the
twelve thousand people on the island and after that her hurricane,
eleven thousand of them are homeless, lost their homes. Yeah,
but then the volcano came around after that. But this
was this was written in seventy nine, so this is
fifteen years before that happened. Sixteen years before that happened.
So prophetic It is happy little song about something that
actually eventually came to freeuition.
Speaker 4: I mean, the song is about what's going to happen
to me when the volcano blows?
Speaker 3: Where will I land? Right?
Speaker 4: Talked about landing at three Mile Island. I don't want
to land there because I don't want my skin to glow.
Very nineteen seventy nine, Three Mile Island.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 4: It also talked about the Atola Very nineteen seventy nine. Yeah,
But overall the song is just super fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the beat, the Caribbean feel to the whole thing.
It's very calypso very you know, steel drums, Yeah, like
a Harry Belafonte style of music. And it just which
is great because you're talking about your ultimate imminent doom
in a happy way, which is the way they did
it down there. I still love it.
Speaker 4: I'm going to tell this story again because I think
it's such a great story. But Elton John was down
there recording and the only thing to really do down
there was windsurf and drink, you know, and it screw.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: But he said, like one day he went into the
studio and like half of his band was hungover and
could come in and the studio, musicians were sick and
everybody had been partying way too much, and Elton John's like,
what the heck, We're here to make an album.
Speaker 3: Nobody's here. What the heck?
Speaker 4: And one guy like the third bassist is over here,
and he goes, I'm still standing and that became the
beginning of the Elton John hit I'm still standing, all right?
So that does it for songs you know by heart?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, So before we jump into what Jason and
I have to say, we have a friend who had
a podcast. It's still out there, but he has moved
strictly to YouTube now. His name's Anthony Renfro and it's
called song Lines and tan Lines. I got that right,
that it is called tan Lines and song Lines. You
put in whichever one's right, okay. But it is a
podcast now YouTube channel dedicated to the music of Jimmy Buffett,
and so I reached out to him, hoped that he
was going to be able to come guest hosts with us,
but we just couldn't make our schedules work. But that
is okay, that's what happens with schedules. But he is
giving us his opinion on which of these two albums
he thinks is the best album, so we'll take a
listen to that now. It's hard to argue against either
one of them. Both would be a great intro to
either artist, and the songs in them have filled many
stereos throughout the years, and picking between the two is
tough because of the songs found on either compilation career
defining songs. Margueriteville even built an empire most and I
understand why would pick the Eagles, But when Buffett is
in the conversation, I always lean towards him and I
will here too. Songs You Know by Heart was one
of the cornerstones of me becoming a parrotead in the
early nineties. Without it, I wouldn't be the fan I
am today. Come Monday was his first hit. Margueritaville will
be played as long as there is music on this earth.
A Pirate looks at forty always takes me to the
beach mentally, no matter where I am, and changes in
latitude will always remind me of the great places I
have been, and on and on it goes. That's my pick,
of course. Thanks for asking me to do this. Finds
up Anthony, Well, not too surprising, not too surprising.
Speaker 4: Thank you Anthony for doing that and getting this to us.
I mean, it's not surprising that a parent head chose
Jimmy Buffett, but still great to hear from him.
Speaker 3: Exactly. Thanks Anthony, Appreciate you man. You guys go check
out that song lines and tan Lines. He's exclusively on
YouTube now, but he's got a whole i think library
of podcasts to listen to, so go check him out.
All right, well, okay, that means it's now time for
me and you. Thank you, Anthony, appreciate you. You want
me to go first, you want to go first, I'll
let you go first this time. Okay. Now, I've mentioned
this matchup to a few people, some of them are
our diehard fans, and everybody says the same thing, and
this is true. The Eagles have the better album. That's
just it's unquestionable that the music on the greatest hits,
I mean number one. We're talking about greatest hits here, right,
So the music of one of the best in history,
literally number six on best selling bands in history, They've
got a better album. It just do That's simple. It's
that easy. That's the end of the story. They have
better music, except it's not always about the music. Sometimes
it's about something more. And so, yeah, are Jimmy Buffett's
songs musically complex? No? No, Is there you know, some deep,
incredible songwriting going on here? Yes? Is there also some silly, crazy, goofy,
messed up stuff going on here?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: And that's why you love this music, because this music
isn't necessarily about the music. It's certainly about the lyrics,
but it's really about the lifestyle. Right. And so if
I'm sitting alone at my house and I want to
listen to music for music's value, I will put on
the Eagle's greatest hits, no question about it. But at
the end of the day, the question that we ask
ourselves if we're running out the door, which album are
we going to grab? I can't deny the feeling that
I get when I listen to songs you know by heart,
and it changes me in a way that the Eagles
don't change me. I can say that the music is
better by the Eagles, but this lifestyle that he created
and publicized and demonstrated is more impactful to me. And
so that is why I am picking Jimmy Buffett songs.
You know by Heart, how.
Speaker 4: About that fantastic? Okay, Well, I literally was with you
every step of the way. So I do think it
is kind of a no brainer that the Eagles songs
are better. I mean, Desperado still gives me chills. I've
heard it a thousand times one of these nights. Lion
Eyes take it easy. I mean, such great songs, take it.
Speaker 3: To the limit, Are you kidding me? Incredible?
Speaker 4: The songs are amazing off that album, and the musician's
ship is off the chart. Don Henley's voice is unmatched,
absolutely awesome. But it is a lifestyle vibe that I
get from Jimmy Buffett's album, and so it pushes that
pleasure button in my brain and I have so much
fun that I listen to it.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I.
Speaker 4: Love Key West, and I love the idea of just
hanging out and fishing all day long and just kicking
back with your flip flops and just enjoying life. I mean,
that is super appealing to me. But it can't overcome
the amazing songs that the Eagles put together on those
first four albums. So if I'm walking out the door,
I'm absolutely grabbing the Eagle's greatest hits.
Speaker 3: But if you're invite me to Key West and go fishing,
I will not turn you down right, And I love
Jimmy Buffett' songs, So for me, it's Eagles greatest hits.
For you, it's Jimmy Buffett. That's fantastic.
Speaker 4: We want to hear from you, guys. What do you pick?
Are we crazy? Is it Eagles?
Speaker 3: Is it Jimmy Buffett? Should we move to Key West tomorrow? Well?
Thank you guys so much. I hope you enjoyed this
little tropical adventure that we had. I mean, what other
artists do we actually put on costumes for other than
Sylvester Stallone? I guess I don't know. Yeah, that was funny.
What do we got coming up next? Man?
Speaker 4: Okay, next week, we are breaking down a trifecta of
nineteen eighty five movies from one actor who was killing
it in nineteen eighty five, and we're talking about Chevy Chase.
Speaker 3: So we got to be talking about European Vacation, Yes,
fletch Yes, spies like US, Spies like US, ah nice.
Speaker 4: All three came out in the same calendar year, nineteen
eighty five. We'll be breaking down those into giving you our.
Speaker 3: Opinion of us. Yeah, fantastic. Can't wait see you then
see you guys back.
Speaker 7: I want you to murder me.
Speaker 3: Okay, here we go. Checklist time. Okay, you have your
cheeseburger in paradise, Yes I do, right here, check boom
French fried potatoes. Yes, right here, Yes, HEINZ fifty seven
right there he is. Give me that I need some
of that. Okay, all right, we got our Margerita glasses,
little goal blender here, a little one of these deals.
Oh jeez, Live TV people. Alright, I'm taking a lid
off for this. Oh I'm gonna be nice and chilly
down on the Old Family Jewels for this episode.
Speaker 2: Sir, alrighty, here we go.
Speaker 3: Alright, alright, alrighty, alright