A Pirate Looks at Forty - Jimmy Buffett - 1974
Lyrics

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call,
Wanted to sail upon your waters
Since I was three feet tall.
You've seen it all, you've seen it all.

Watch the men who rode you,
Switch from sails to steam.
And in your belly you hold the treasure
That few have ever seen, most of them dreams,
Most of them dreams.

Yes, I am a pirate two hundred years too late.
The cannons don't thunder there's nothin' to plunder
I'm an over forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late.

I've done a bit of smugglin'
I've run my share of grass.
I made enough money to buy Miami,
But I pissed it away so fast,
Never meant to last, never meant to last.

I have been drunk now for over two weeks,
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks,
But I've got to stop wishin',
Got to go fishin', I'm down to rock bottom again.
Just a few friends, just a few friends.

I go for younger women, lived with several awhile
And though I ran away, they'll come back one day.
And still could manage a smile
It just takes awhile, just takes awhile.

Mother, mother ocean, after all these years I've found
My occupational hazard being my occupation's
Just not around.
I feel like I've drowned,
Gonna head uptown.

More Trivia

Jimmy started out singing Country songs in Alabama. After hitting the Florida Keys he developed a laid back "Parrot Head" style that sent his career up to the superstar status he now enjoys. In the late '70s he could boast of filling the Altamonte Springs-Jai Alai Fronton with about 800 fans. A couple of years later he could gather 2 or 3 thousand drunken rebels to the F.I.T. soccer field in Melbourne Florida. He likes to sing autobiographical pages from his traveling experiences, though how much drug running and subversive brawling in the Caribbean he fictionalized or actually did is a statute of limitations issue that may be answered now that he has completed a journalism degree and has set to writing prose as a supplement to his songwriting.

A Pirate Looks at Fifty is the name of Jimmy Buffett's autobiography.


Even More Trivia