“Margaritaville” and the power of Jimmy Buffett
By Ryan White
January, 1977. The temperature dropped to 27 degrees in Palm Beach and to 20 in Orlando. Over in the Bahamas, aboard a sailboat named Euphoria, Jimmy Buffett—days away from the release of the album that would change his life—watched it snow.
At that moment, Buffett was a rakish folk singer full of wit and charm who had scrapped the 9-to-5 career that had earned him that 33-foot Cheoy Lee ketch. He had a set list of songs infused with the spirit of the Key West he’d discovered in 1971. And he was on the cusp of something he had predicted would never happen.
“I’m going to be content at a certain level,” he had told High Times a month earlier. “I’m not going to try to sell my lifestyle to America. Because they ain’t going to buy it. They never have.”
Soon after the cold snap, “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” arrived in stores and “Margaritaville” began moving up the charts. It peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in July and would finish the year as 1977’s 14th-biggest hit. Today, its closest analog is another touchstone from that same year. Like “Star Wars,” “Margaritaville” was an act of artistry that built an entire new world.
“I sell escapism,” Buffett once said, and Margaritaville, with its alluring promise of retreating to a laid-back Key West, became a brand that eclipsed the song. It served as the setting for short stories, a musical and movies that never got made. It led millions of singalongs for tens of millions of fans. It created hotels and resorts, retirement communities, timeshare opportunities, cruise ships, bars and restaurants, shoes, frozen foods, frozen concoction makers, T-shirts and more. So it’s worth remembering what the song was when Buffett was shivering in Bimini.
To begin with, it’s sad. Disillusionment fuels that character’s breakdown. Had he stayed in one place too long? Did he have anything other than a mysterious tattoo to show for that time? And did he bear the responsibility for the unmoored state of his life?
Buffett had scored a minor hit in 1974 when “Come Monday” cracked the top 40, but he hadn’t been able to follow it up. Equally frustrating, the undiscovered Key West he fled to in 1971 had become a tourist hotspot, and it was changing fast.
That frustration is written into “Margaritaville” but set to sunny rhythms and warm melodies, a juxtaposition echoed in lyrics that evoke both the melancholy of a lost soul and the sensual pleasures of a free and easy island life. The song stirred something so powerful in listeners that it would reprogram the music played not just in tropical vacation spots but almost anywhere near any water. A rooftop joint in beachfront Ludington, Michigan, flies a Conch Republic flag. Jimmy Buffett did that.
Every story is the story of change and how it’s navigated. Buffett deftly navigated decades of culture shifts by simply being himself. That was enough to influence the culture itself.
In the 1980s, he sued the Mexican restaurant chain Chi-Chi’s over the trademark to “Margaritaville.” Chi-Chi’s had been employing the title to promote drink specials. In response to a filing by Buffett’s lawyers, Chi-Chi’s lawyers wrote, “An equally absurd claim to rights in gross arises from Opposer’s claim that restaurant services are somehow a natural field of expansion for entities which publish music.”
Walk down Broadway in Nashville and gaze upon the neon signs outside bars bearing the names of Garth Brooks, Dierks Bentley, Lainey Wilson, Jason Aldean, Eric Church, Jon Bon Jovi and many more. Jimmy Buffett did that.
In the 1990s, as the music industry wrestled with the arrival of the internet, Buffett embraced its opportunities. Long ignored by traditional radio, he launched Radio Margaritaville online and broadcast his live shows for free. SiriusXM would add the channel, and satellite radio is now awash in artist channels. Jimmy Buffett did that, too.
If the critics didn’t always love Buffett, most everyone else did. After he died on Sept.1, 2023, celebrities, artists, politicians, sports teams and music fans around the world celebrated his life and the joy he carried and shared.
In April 2023, the Library of Congress inducted “Margaritaville” into the National Recording Registry, a collection of recordings judged culturally, historically and artistically significant. In October 2024, Buffett was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. James Taylor had the honor.
“For so many of us, Jimmy was like a heroic figure in some Greek myth,” Taylor said. “His adventure was our adventure, and we got to share his huge love of life.”
Jimmy Buffett
Twice named one of the top features writers in America by the Society for Features Journalism, Ryan White is the author of Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way and Springsteen: Album by Album. Info: RyanWWhite.com.