In Search of Margaritaville

In Search of Margaritaville

Commentary by: Bill the Butcher

God needed a bartender in heaven, so He called Jimmy Buffet home. Very rarely does the passing of an entertainer affect the public consciousness as the death of Jimmy Buffet. And as he’d done all his life, he did it right on que with all the appropriate equipment and the laid-back style everyone had grown accustomed to expect from him. A skin cancer from hanging out on the beach, surrounded by friends and family with no less than Paul McCartney there to comfort the girls. Well done good and faithful servant!

His signature song was a paradox. On the surface it rings of a standard country theme. A ruined life wasting away in a mythical place Jimmy called Margaritaville. And that’s all most people hear. Conditioned by music executives In Nashville, that’s the expected result of a failed romance. No one ever gets over it. No one ever moves on. No one ever emerges from the dark clouds that drift into everyone’s life. Some lumber through and endure life, some find success that ends in the back seat of a Cadillac, but some, a very few, find Margaritaville. It’s always been there. You could have seen it had you only looked.

The subliminal message of the song is revealed in the first verse. “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame but I know . . . it’s nobody’s fault.” When you Google the lyrics, you find the published words are “it’s somebody’s fault,” but that’s not what Jimmy sang. He sang, “NOBODY’S!” The word “Somebody” places blame somewhere other than self. That’s just narcissistic. “Anybody but me! SHE did it!” I’ve been divorced six times. Early in life I learned the value of the word, “Next!” Learn that word. I’ve found it to be quite handy. Most people never learn that word, and if they do, they can’t define it. It means to move on. Find someone else. Or find nobody and just be yourself. Jimmy exemplified this be saying openly that his current condition is NOBODY’S fault. Not even his own. Point of fact is he never said there even WAS a girl at all. He may have moved out of his parent’s basement to a beachcomber lifestyle, and they freaked out. He’s sitting on a porch of a bungalow on a shore somewhere strumming a “six string,” laughing at tourists who are covered with suntan lotion (That will do them absolutely NO good whatever) and boiling shrimp for lunch. And the technical jargon goes right over most heads. Calling a guitar a “six string” infers that it is not plugged into an amp. That would be an electric amplifier for all you civilians out there. It’s acoustic! Barely heard by the people on the beach.

From there we move on with the life plan on the singer. There’s no reason for his current living conditions. He’s been there for the entire summer season. The very fact that he’s sitting of a front porch swing in Florida, Hawaii, Galveston, or even Travis Lake in Austin means the rent is being paid by SOMEBODY. From his self-description in the first verse, it can be assumed that the name on the lease simply can’t be THIS beach bum. There has to be a woman catching the rent but that’s only where you are being led. He never cited a woman. She’s not on the swing with him. In fact, he tells us quite frankly that he’s womanless, and apparently has been for a while. He’s boiling his own shrimp, for God’s sake!

His only accomplishment for the entire summer is a tattoo in some nondescript location. No job. No hit song. No woman. Just a pretty Mexican chick probably inscribed on his butt! If I had a tattoo there it would be a pretty señorita, but that’s just me. He hadn’t changed the world that summer and he don’t care!

So how does he do it? Even though he doesn’t do anything, plan anything or regret anything he seems quite content. He’s happy because he’s “Wasted away again in ‘Margaritaville !” He’s so laid back that he can’t find his saltshaker to do another cocktail, and that is apparently the most important thing on his mind. Then he returns to the chorus, only this time reluctantly admitting his current situation “could” be his fault. He’s STILL not laying it at somebody ELSE’S feet! And don’t forget that we’re only ASSUMING he’s not happy.

But apparently, he had a small problem earlier. He “Blew out his ‘flip flop.” As you may or may not know, when that band between the first and second toe goes, it all goes. Time to drop by Walmart . . . someday. But not today. And walking around barefoot leads to a catastrophe. Stepped on a disposed pop top from someone’s wine cooler carelessly dropped on the beach resulting in a small cut on his heal. All plans are off. It didn’t take much. Time to cruise back to Margaritaville and the cocktail that he left in the blender that morning when he decided to take a walk. And oh yes, he cruised home, not walked. Tourists walk. Residents cruise.

The last chorus seals the psychological understanding of his life. You can’t find a dump truck big enough to carry all the schyts this guy don’t give. You can take your rehab, your DSM III, you pity, and your religion, roll ‘em up in a tight wad, and stick ‘em where the sun don’t shine, cause he don’t mind. And tomorrow he’ll be right back on that porch strumming that six string again.

Thank you, Jimmy!

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