One Singer completely changed my life!
I haven’t even told my wife about this!
That’s right. There is a singer that I started listening to in the late 1970s, probably 1978 or so. For at least 30 years, he was basically the only singer/musician that I ever listened to. He caused me to alter the entire direction of my life.
His influence changed the entire direction of my life in the late 1990s! The life event that his influence led to is unknown even to my wife. There is little or nothing that I don’t tell Feyma but on this one…. I never told her!
Who is the singer?
That singer is Jimmy Buffett. Buffett is mostly known for one song… Margaritaville. A couple of his other songs have gained minor popularity over the years (one would be “Come Monday”), but few people know about any Buffett songs beyond Margaritaville. Personally, I don’t really like Margaritaville that much, nor do most of Jimmy’s serious fans. It is, though, without a doubt his most commercially successful song.
I would say that all, or at least the vast majority of Jimmy Buffett’s songs are about islands, tropical places, and that type of lifestyle.
Were you a reader of my LiP Website?
If you were a fan of my LiP (Live in the Philippines) website when I used to live there? As an aside, Paul Thompson was a huge Buffett fan too (Buffett fans are called “Parrott Heads”). When Paul and I first met and found out that we were both Parrott Heads, we exchanged music files to that we each had the complete Buffett albums, and Jimmy has dozens of albums. Paul passed a couple of years ago, and I miss his wit and humor!
So how did Jimmy Buffett change my life?
I started listening to Buffett in the late 70s, as I explained. In 1990, I went to the Philippines for the first time, and I married Feyma during that trip. About 4 months later, Feyma immigrated to the USA, and we lived in Washington State for about 10 years. We visited the Philippines several times in the 1990s.
For Feyma, it was about visiting family and friends in the Philippines. I also enjoyed visiting Feyma’s family, but what I loved most about traveling to the Philippines was the tropical weather and lifestyle. Honestly, when I would go visit the Philippines I felt that I was living a Jimmy Buffett lifestyle. The tropics… it was special to me. Life in the Philippines matched up nicely with the things that Jimmy Buffett sang about.
The decision to move
In the mid-90s I started thinking about the possibility to move to and live in the Philippines. It sounded like a great idea to me. I think in about 1996 or 1997, I told Feyma that I thought we should move to the Philippines. She did not like the idea. Living in the States was an adventure for her, and living in the Philippines, to her, meant living a poor, and tough life. I didn’t see it that way, because I knew I could make a living online from the Philippines, as I was already doing that in the States. It took a couple of years to convince Feyma to make the move, but in the end, she decided to give it a try.
There were a number of things that made me desire to move to the Philippines:
- Our eldest son has special needs. With a large family in the Philippines, we felt that we would have good support in assisting to raise him.
- It felt like an adventure to me, and adventure was sort of a Jimmy Buffett thing in my mind.
- It was the tropics… what else can you say?
- The influence of many Jimmy Buffett songs gave me a desire to live in the tropics and enjoy that lifestyle.
So, for me, it all combined into two things. I thought it was better for our son and the influence of Jimmy Buffett’s songs gave me the desire to move to the Philippines.
I never told Feyma that Jimmy Buffett played a (major) role in my desire to make the move.
I had a falling out with Jimmy Buffett in 2014
In 2014, I started getting tired of listening to Jimmy Buffett. Between about 1978 and 2014 I would say that 95% of the music I listened to was Jimmy Buffett. At some point in 2014, I just thought “I’m tired of Buffett” and I stopped listening cold turkey. Lol. I never told Paul Thompson, I wasn’t sure he could handle it!
My divorce from Jimmy lasted for about 7 years. Just a couple of months ago, I was making some revisions to my music playlist on my phone. I thought to myself that I was missing Buffett, and decided to add some of his songs to the playlist (I only added about 100 songs of his, LoL).
Something happened last weekend
Last weekend, Feyma and I were out on sort of a mini-road trip. One of Buffett’s songs started playing in the car. This is probably my favorite Jimmy Buffett song, I have always thought that this song could basically be a perfect song describing my life in the Philippines. As the song was coming to a close, Feyma said:
That song really describes your life in the Philippines
Yep, Feyma was in my head again, we often discover that we are having the same thoughts, and she hit the nail on the head this time. Actually, she probably knows that I wanted to move to the Philippines because of Buffett, but she didn’t say. I’m sure I’ll find out when she reads this article. 🙂
So, what was that perfect song that described my life?
I’m not saying… yet. In my next article I will reveal the song, put up a video of the song, and I’ll discuss some of the lines in the song, and how I feel it matches up with my life. I’ll post that sometime in the next week.
If you’re also a Parrott Head, leave a comment and let me know. Tell me what your favorite Jimmy Buffett song is!
I was 15 years old in Santa Barbara hitchhiking on the 101 north and Jimmy’s tour bus picked me up. Jimmy was there at the table and never stopped playing guitar, except to play a little on the piano. He was very focused in the music, while everyone else was drinking and smoking weed, but not Jimmy, he just played. I got off the buss south of San Francisco. What I learned from that is if you want to be good, you really need to focus and practice.
Wow. I bet that was an amazing experience. Thanks for sharing that.