“Come Monday, it’ll be alright”, just wasn’t true for Gen X and Baby Boomers on the morning of Saturday, September 2, 2023. Although Jimmy Buffett had been quietly battling skin cancer for the past four years, little was publicly known, and the news hit many Parrot Heads like a ton of bricks.
For years Parrot Heads, the affectionate name for Jimmy Buffett fans, have been making pilgrimages to outdoor concerts venues across the country in mass. However, it is more than just a concert, it is the transformation of a parking lot into a laid-back beachy, tropical themed setting. In fact, to many the concert isn’t even the main event, it is the tailgate jungle of grass skirts, Hawaiian shirts, inflatable flamingoes, tiki bars, sand pits, cheeseburgers, and frozen libations that is the main attraction.
Jimmy Buffett dropped out of college at Southern Mississippi to head to Nashville to pursue a music career. However, he quickly realized that he needed to be surrounded by the lifestyle of boats, beaches, and bars that inspired many of his songs and writings. He settled in Key West, Florida, where the town became his muse and the local motto, “Close to perfect, far from normal,” became his way of living.
Incredibly, Buffett turned his island living and song writing career into a billion dollar business, reaching number eighteen on Forbes Richest Celebrities of All Time and number 97 on Vanity Fair’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world (https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/jimmy-buffetts-laid-back-party-vibe-created-adoring-102881131). Yet what might be the most remarkable thing about his empire is that he did it primarily through word of mouth and live shows. He very rarely released music videos, but instead built his career through grassroots movements that grew from small bars in Key West to stadiums holding tens of thousands across the country. In his own words, “I’m not a great singer and I’m not a great guitar player but I’m a good entertainer.”
So, knowing all of this, why were your parents hit so hard this weekend? Well, almost everyone I know who is in their mid-thirties to mid-eighties has experienced at least one Buffett show. In fact, most enjoyed it so much the first time that they have made it a yearly tradition.
I have seen Buffett over fifteen times in my lifetime, and I remember thinking ten years ago that I better see him one last time before he stops performing. However, he kept going year after year, and his energy levels on stage never dipped.
Yet even I knew a good thing would come to an end, and weary of this inevitability, my wife and I drug our kids to a show two summers ago. Much to my enjoyment, my children fully embraced the atmosphere, donning grass skirts and Hawaiian shirts and singing along to the tunes that they had become all too familiar with during family road trips.
Yet despite his age, his career stopped abruptly as he succumbed to the “Big C”. Most of us felt we would get a final stadium tour where he retired from the limelight with one last fanfare, but instead I woke Saturday morning to a text from my sister with crying emojis and two words, “Buffett’s dead.” The man who embraced a beach bum lifestyle and seemed to be the calming path to living forever was gone, and to myself and probably many of your parents came a harsh dose of mortality. When Buffett died, a little part of many of us died alongside him. He was a summer constant through most of our lives and now a void exists that many of us are struggling to deal with. The man who taught us about a “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, the “Last Mango in Paris”, and how to waste away in “Margaritaville” is gone; however, perhaps we can find a joy in the sorrow that the pirate well beyond 40 heeded the calling of mother ocean one last time and set sail beyond the waters of this Earth.
