I tried to write a song once. I had strummed out four simple chords on acoustic guitar, and I had chosen a title and a theme. The title was to be “Streetcorner Jesus,” a song about a real guy who used to stand on a street corner in Parkersburg, W.Va., open Bible in hand, preaching to everyone and/or no one in particular.
I wrote:
Toss some change he’ll save your soul
With the Good Book in his hand.”
Or words to that effect. That’s as far as I got before
coming to the stunning conclusion that songwriting is not one of my skills.
Which brings me to Jimmy Buffett. I’m sure everyone knows by now that Jimmy died this week at age 76, ending a career that began in the 1970s and might have continued even longer if cancer hadn’t finally put him down. He wrote, by some estimates, 215 songs, and while I admit I haven’t heard them all, I can say for certain that I never heard one I didn’t like.
By comparison, Wikipedia says the Beatles wrote 213 songs in a recording career that lasted only eight years, and no two of them sounded the same. Likewise for Paul Simon, who just released a new album, bringing his total to around 400, and Bob Dylan’s prolific writing career that produced 600 or more songs.
I have read that the Beatles often entered the studio needing two songs to finish an album. They sat down behind a piano or with acoustic guitars and simply knocked out new material virtually on demand. I have also read that Dylan wrote hundreds more poems or song lyrics that were never recorded, and that some of his songs that did hit vinyl had multiple additional verses that didn’t make the cut.
My point is this: I so admire anybody who can write a song, whether it’s one song or 213 songs or 600 songs or more. I have always considered myself a writer, and I have mastered the writing of newspaper articles, letters, brochures, public relations materials of all kinds, emails, Facebook posts, this blog and even five fiction mystery books. But I cannot write a single song.
I really don’t know why other people can do this, but apparently they possess the ability to create music where there was no music and lyrics where none existed before. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones claims that “Satisfaction” came to him in a dream. Paul McCartney says he was thinking about his mother, Mary, and times of trouble when “Let It Be” flowed through his fingers.
Which brings me back to Jimmy Buffett. I don’t claim to know everything that ever happened to Jimmy in his lifetime, but I saw him in concert four, maybe five times and several more times in videos and on TV, and if there was a happier man on the planet I don’t know who it could be. He sang songs with a smile – both literally and figuratively – and never seemed to tire of performing “Margaritaville” for the nine millionth time … and with the same enthusiasm as the first time he played it live.
His obituary notes that Buffett was a pilot and a sailor who wrote songs about his plane being shot at by Jamaican police (“Jamaica Mistaica”), getting lost in the Sahara Desert (“Buffet Hotel”) and smugglers he had known around the Florida Gulf Coast (“A Pirate Looks at 40”). Although he was best known for upbeat party songs, the obituary says, Buffett first achieved notoriety for thoughtful ballads that showed the influence of Texas songwriters such as Jerry Jeff Walker and Canadian Gordon Lightfoot.
He had another career as an author who once wrote articles for Billboard Magazine, and was one of a handful of writers who had number one best-sellers on both the fiction and non-fiction lists of the New York Times Book Review. As an entrepreneur, he was known for his Margaritaville hotels, restaurants and retirement communities, along with sidelines such as Land Shark beer. Buffett’s branding and business acumen made him one of the most financially successful musicians of all time.
Looking back over his life, if any of us had done but 10 percent of what Buffett accomplished we would have thought our lives had been complete. But his friend, CBS "Sunday Morning" contributor Bill Flanagan, summed up Buffett best: “I don’t think I knew anyone with more positive life force,” Flanagan said. “Everything was an adventure (for Buffett), and if the adventure went sideways, he’d come home with a good story.”
I’m old now and celebrities of my generation have already died, and others will die in the years to come. I can accept that fact, but this one came as a shock. I was a big fan of Jimmy Buffett, a truly talented man and a purveyor of joy for nearly 50 years. RIP, Jimmy. This one really hurts.
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