Song Lyric Sunday – A Shaker of Salt

This week I was stumped to find something to fit the prompts for Song Lyric Sunday, hosted by Jim Adams. They are Cinnamon, Mint, Parsley, Pepper, Rosemary, Sage, Salt and Thyme. You know the most obvious song will be Scarborough Fair by Simon and Garfunkel and everyone will either choose it or avoid it like me! So what is left? Well I found a few but nothing that particularly excited me. So I am going with one that I couldn’t get out of my head because of its reference to “a shaker of salt”. What else but Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville.

As I live in Florida I can attest that Margaritaville is like the state song. Everyone knows, plays it, sings it, lives it and you hear it everywhere! Isn’t it amazing how Jimmy Buffet made a fortune based on a lifestyle of laid back drunkenness? 😊

Buffett wrote this song in Key West, Florida, after he finished a tour with his group, the Coral Reefer Band. They had just toured Texas, and Buffett spent some time drinking margaritas in a Mexican restaurant with a friend before going back to Key West. When he got there, he sat at the Old Anchor Inn watching gridlock on the roads – and used it as inspiration as he composed the song.

He recorded this song at Criteria Studios in Miami with producer Norbert Putnam. Buffett and Putnam met in Nashville, which is where each did most of their work. When Buffett asked Putnam to work on an album of songs about a carefree lifestyle by the water, Putnam told him that he needed to be near the water when recording it if he was going to pull it off, so Miami it was. Putnam said in Sound On Sound: “One day in the studio, he comes in and starts telling me about a day he had in Key West. He was coming home from a bar and he lost one of his flip-flops and he stepped on a beer can top and he couldn’t find the salt for his Margarita. He says he’s writing lyrics to it and I say ‘That’s a terrible idea for a song.’ He comes back in a few days later with ‘Wasted Away Again In Margaritaville’ and plays it and right then everyone knows it’s a hit song. Hell, it wasn’t a song – it was a movie.”

Regarding the success of this song, Buffett said: “I was lucky enough to get my thumb on the pulse beat of what people perceived the tropics to be.”

“Margaritaville” has come to symbolize a carefree Caribbean lifestyle – what some in Key West call “Keys disease.” For many, the only time they experience this way of living is on vacations or at Jimmy Buffett concerts. Buffett has a lot of fans who work very hard, make a lot of money, and use his music as an escape.  Courtesy of Songfacts

Lyrics

Nibblin' on sponge cake
Watchin' the sun bake
All of those tourists covered with oil
Strummin' my six string on my front porch swing
Smell those shrimp they're beginnin' to boil

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville
Searchin' for my long lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I know it's nobody's fault

Don't know the reason
Stayed here all season
Nothing to show but this brand new tattoo
But it's a real beauty
A Mexican cutie
How it got here I haven't a clue

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
Now I think hell it could be my fault

I blew out my flip flop
Stepped on a pop top
Cut my heel had to cruise on back home
But there's booze in the blender
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on

Wastin' away again in Margaritaville
Searchin' for my lost shaker of salt
Some people claim that there's a woman to blame
But I know it's my own damn fault
Yes and some people claim that there's a woman to blame
And I know it's my own damn fault

Lyrics licensed and provided by 
LyricFind

  12 comments for “Song Lyric Sunday – A Shaker of Salt

  1. May 31, 2020 at 5:04 pm

    Jimmy is the founder of a lifestyle with this song. He probably has a patent on tiki hut bars too 😉 I reach for the tequila (or at least think about it) every time I hear this song.

    • Christine Bolton
      May 31, 2020 at 8:12 pm

      I know right?!! 🤣👍 Thanks Lisa

  2. May 31, 2020 at 12:36 pm

    Classic tune that totally depicts how we live in Florida. I prefer my tequila straight up though. Jimmy played in a few episodes of Hawaii Five-0 in the past 10 years. Not bad at the acting thing. 🙂

    • Christine Bolton
      May 31, 2020 at 8:16 pm

      Lol. Yes right down to the shorts, t shirts a flip flops 24/7/365 🤣 I do believe I saw Jimmy Buffet in a movie too recently too. I cant remember to name of course 😕

  3. May 31, 2020 at 11:35 am

    Hey I love Jimmy Buffet! Darn I heard the best description of his music but I can’t remember 😡😡😡

  4. May 31, 2020 at 11:21 am

    I used to own a timeshare in Key West and although I was neve a big tequila fan, I always liked this.

  5. May 31, 2020 at 10:33 am

    Love this song 💜😍

  6. May 31, 2020 at 9:19 am

    Excellent! You were reading my mind, Christine! LOL! I almost went with Margaritaville too, but since I used it earlier this month for the Cinco de Mayo prompt, I decided not to take the easy way out… this time! 😀 😀 Such a classic! Go, you! 🙂

    • Christine Bolton
      May 31, 2020 at 10:02 am

      Aww thanks Felicia. 🥰. I really agonized over this weeks prompts. Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young, who I love, just wasn’t doing it for me. Just give me another Margarita! Lol 😆

      • May 31, 2020 at 12:09 pm

        I’ll toast to that! 🙂

      • Christine Bolton
        May 31, 2020 at 8:17 pm

        🤣🤣🤣 Cheers!

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