Something About Summer

There is much that is said about the supernatural tendencies of women. There is the uncanny display of foresight involved in women's "intuition." There is also the tick-tock of the famous "maternal clock," the internal timepiece that sends young women into gray hair inducing fits.

As far as I can tell, I'm not a woman. I do, however, have my own internal clock system. Unlike the female baby clock, mine is tied to the seasons, particularly summer. Each year around April or May I begin to have an itch for a certain type of music--songs that befit the changing weather, tunes that shift my mind forward into the realm of sunshine, music that puts a smile on my face. I itch for a little Jimmy Buffett.

There are many who knowingly or not reject Mr. Buffett. People only see him as the purveyor of catchy over played pool party hits--Cheeseburger in Paradise, Margaritaville, Let's Get Drunk. You can't erase those songs nor can you detach him from them. They, the songs and the writer, have both become a slice of America. Unfortunately, to most he seems to be nothing more than an entertainer and a mass market commodity. What is lost behind this glossy surface of success is his real and unmistakable talent as a songwriter and storyteller.

It may come as a shock but Jimmy Buffett is a fixture in my storyteller Top-5 (w/Billy Joe Shaver, John Prine, Guy Clark, and TVZ). He is for all intents and purposes past his prime in this regard. With the hubbub of life crowding in around the edges, it is easy to lose the spark that once drove you. That, however, shouldn't cast a pall over his songwriting gems of the past. He created labors of love, testaments to craftsmanship. He was honest and wrote what he knew. And never has anyone so poignantly captured youth, travel, and a longing for something beyond oneself as he did in the early years of his career.

"All of the faces and all of the places, wonderin' where they all disappeared."