Missing The Troubadour

Troubadour extraordinaire
You touched our hearts, shaped our lives
Changed our latitudes, changed our attitudes
Gave us a license to chill

Troubadour extraordinaire
You taught us to adjust our sails
Helped us count our blessings
And remember our dreams

I don’t want to live
In a world without daydreamin’
I don’t want to live
In a world without a tire swing
I don’t want to live
In a world without Buffett

Troubadour extraordinaire
Somewhere it’s five o’clock and fins are up
We’re the jolly mons and the brown-eyed girls
Living the sweet life, embracing salty seas

Troubadour extraordinaire
Come Monday, we know it’ll be all right
Ut and Mac still taking it all in
Nibblin’ on sponge cake, growing older, but not up

I don’t want to live
In a world without daydreamin’
I don’t want to live
In a world without a tire swing
I don’t want to live
In a world without Buffett

Troubadour extraordinaire
Always reaching for our destination
Where cheeseburgers are paradise
And Margaritaville a state of mind

Troubadour extraordinaire
Counting our blessings, playing our hunches
Our Parrothead dreams and magic are real
Forevermore we breathe in, breathe out, move on

I don’t want to live
In a world without daydreamin’
I don’t want to live
In a world without a tire swing
I don’t want to live
In a world without Buffett

Troubadour extraordinaire
You taught us to trust our intuition
To roll with the punches, play all our hunches
To aim for one particular harbour

Troubadour extraordinaire
Son of a son of a sailor, a good life all the way
Missing you so, just want you back by our side
Grace, Godspeed and Gratitude, JimmyB

I don’t want to live
In a world without daydreamin’
I don’t want to live
In a world without a tire swing
I don’t want to live
In a world without Buffett

*******************************

Addendum from LSomerbyCooke …

Note to Messrs. (Zac) Brown and (Alan) Jackson: You have my permission to add music to my quasi-lyrics and thoughts about our incredible storyteller friend. 🙂

6 thoughts on "Missing The Troubadour"

Cathy TUCKER says:

September 21, 2023 at 8:38 am

Great writing.

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John Sutton says:

September 21, 2023 at 4:09 pm

Nicely done. He was a great entertainer and a wonderful Dad. When his daughter attended DSOTA he took time to drop in to jam with the students on occasion. What a life experience for those lucky kids. Jimmy made the world a better place. Such a happy, talented, gifted musician, businessman and Dad. What a legacy. What a man.

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Reed Sprague says:

September 22, 2023 at 4:59 pm

Jimmy Buffett was a class act all the way, a wonderful person and a great entertainer. You did good by him, Lee. Great blog post.

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Duane E Barrett says:

September 27, 2023 at 6:29 pm

Like so many of us Buffett fans that are now in our 60’s, I started listening to Jimmy while I was in high school back in the late ’70’s. One of my best memories of seeing him was a 2-day back-to-back gig he played at Carowinds (half the park is in NC, half is in SC) while I was still in HS. I was with 4-5 other guys, all of them came from money but I of course didn’t. We stayed at the Rennaissance hotel in downtown Charlotte, which was where he and the Coral Reefers ended up staying that weekend.

We took turns Friday afternoon sitting on the front row of the concert venue, half of us would go and ride the rides, etc., and then we’d trade off. Saw him from the 2nd row on Friday night, which was awesome. We played/partied pretty hard that night and got up Saturday morning to go down to the complimentary breakfast buffet (no pun intended). I forgot something back up in the room, so left the rest of the group and got on an elevator to go back up to the room. Jimmy gets on the elevator; it’s me, him and some little geeky looking guy (definitely not a hard-core fan). Jimmy is wearing the same clothes he played in the night before. I say something like, we were going to try to come find your room last night, had some great “stuff” you might have enjoyed. He said, wish you would have, we were up all night. He gets ready to get off the elevator and I say “man, my friends aren’t going to believe this happened”. He looks me in the eye, and says “tell them it did, and it was real”.

Here’s the funny thing — I’m back down in the lobby, and the little geeky guy comes up to me and asks if that was Buffett. I said if you have to ask, you really don’t need to know.

Watched him again that Saturday night from the 1st/2nd row at Carowinds, and he nods to me/us a couple of times.

So many of us will miss him, his music, and the adventures we’ve lived vicariously through his music.

Lee, thanks for composing this tribute to such a great storyteller. When the time is right, I’ll show you what it’s like to party when you want to stay up all night and say goodbye to a true legend.

JB-RIP

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Cheri says:

November 11, 2023 at 10:05 pm

Hi, Lee. That is an amazing Memorial to Jimmy Buffett! You Sir are a gifted storyteller yourself!

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Peg Spellman says:

September 29, 2023 at 2:22 pm

Lovely tribute to a man who encouraged people to live with joy and enthusiasm. Thanks, Lee!

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