Missing Jimmy Buffett, the man who helped me hang on
I’m writing from a Buffett-less world.
I’m perched on the bow of my pontoon boat, “Spooner,” staring out over Lake Dardanelle. It’s not the Yucatan, or even the Emerald Coast, but it’s as close as this ol’ Arkansas boy’s gonna get.
I got the news Jimmy Buffett had passed away while I was in San Diego. I was there for a writers’ convention. My debut novel was up for an award. I wore my 1991 Jimmy Buffett “Outpost” tour tee to the reception. If I won, I wanted to go onstage and sing the opening lines of “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”
I didn’t win.
I felt bad, mainly because I wanted to say something nice about Jimmy. I wanted to try and express how much his art had meant to me.
When I was 9, I found a stack of blue-trimmed MCA cassette tapes in my dad’s closet. One of the album covers featured a mustachioed blond dude leaned way back in a beach chair, his crystal-blue eyes aimed on the horizon. That man was Jimmy Buffett, and the album was “A1A.”
In the years to come, I listened to those cassettes every night as I drifted off to sleep. My brain was soon stuffed with nautical wheelers, coconut telegraphs and beach houses on the moon.
When it came time for me to go to college, I had a handful of football scholarships from Arkansas schools, but I chose Florida Atlantic University because of those old Buffett tapes.
“Mother, Mother Ocean. I have heard your call … .”
My dad heard the same call right after he graduated college. He’d been listening to those same cassettes and broke up with Mom before setting off for Key Largo. Dad only made it as far as Boca Raton, the same city where I went to college. Dad spent that summer working at a Pizza Hut and sleeping on my uncle’s couch.
The Cranor boys aren’t the only people out there with similar
vstories. All across the globe, folks have been buying into Jimmy’s ocean dream for longer than I’ve been alive. Just Google “Margaritaville” and you’ll find a bevy of restaurants, resorts, stuffed parrots and other off-the-wall merchandise.
Dad lost his taste for Buffett as the years wore on. He claimed Jimmy had sold out, which mainly had to do with my father’s disdain for “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” While I’ll admit that that song doesn’t hit the same chords as tracks like “Tin Cup Chalice” or “He Went to Paris,” I still disagree with Dad.
Jimmy Buffett never sold out.
He never went full country. Never changed his style or ventured too far from the beach. Jimmy stayed true to his roots all the way to the end. Did he capitalize off it? Sure. He spread the message of the endless summer to the farthest reaches of the world, and I for one, am thankful.
Without Jimmy Buffett, I literally wouldn’t be where I am today, sitting on my boat in the middle of a muddy lake, a “frozen concoction” to my right, a blue-eyed dog to my left, doing my best to live life in three-quarter time.
Rest in peace, Bubba.
Eli Cranor is the nationally bestselling, Edgar-Award-winning author of “Don’t Know Tough” and “Ozark Dogs.”He can be reached using the“Contact”page at elicranor.com and found on X (formerly Twitter) @elicranor. While I’ll admit that that song doesn’t hit the same chords as tracks like “Tin Cup Chalice” or “He Went to Paris,” I still disagree with Dad.