He Went To Paris

He Went to Paris
By Jimmy Buffett

He went to Paris looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
He was impressive, young and aggressive
Saving the world on his own
But the warm Summer breezes
The French wines and cheeses
Put his ambition at bay
And Summers and Winters
Scattered like splinters
And four or five years slipped away

Then he went to England, played the piano
And married an actress named Kim
They had a fine life, she was a good wife
And bore him a young son named Jim
And all of the answers and all of the questions
He locked in his attic one day
‘Cause he liked the quiet clean country living
And twenty more years slipped away

Well the war took his baby, the bombs killed his lady
And left him with only one eye
His body was battered, his world was shattered
And all he could do was just cry
While the tears were falling, he was recalling
The answers he never found
So he hopped on a freighter, skidded the ocean
And left England without a sound

Now he lives in the islands, fishes the pilin’s
And drinks his green label each day
He’s writing his memoirs and losing his hearing
But he don’t care what most people say
Through 86 years of perpetual motion
If he likes you he’ll smile then he’ll say
Jimmy, some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all the way

And he went to Paris looking for answers
To questions that bother him so

Jimmy Buffett is probably best known for his tropical rock music, which often portrays a lifestyle described as “island escapism.” With his Coral Reefer Band, he is best known for songs like the hit “Margaritaville” and its namesake restaurants and for a sense of humor and irony exhibited in songs like “Cheeseburger In Paradise” and “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” (which originally had the words “and screw” added to the end but was dropped from the title by a lot of online retailers and websites). With this last weekend being Labor Day weekend, I can’t fail to mention “Come Monday.” But what often escapes the notice of so many is that this guy really is an accomplished, and often very serious, songwriter with hundreds of original titles to his credit. His songwriting gift showed up early in pieces like the much-lauded 1973 story song “He Went To Paris.” Though people know many of his other songs, many Jimmy Buffett fans (or Parrotheads, as they call themselves) might tell you that “He Went To Paris” is their favorite song. (My personal favorites are “Stars Fell on Alabama” and “Pencil Thin Mustache.”)

From his album A White Sport Coat And A Pink Crustacean, Buffett wrote the third-person narrative “He Went To Paris” about a Spanish Civil War veteran and one-armed pianist he’d met named Eddie Balchowsky. Released as the album’s final single, it didn’t chart, but in recent years, it has become well known, especially since Bob Dylan named it as one of his favorites and Buffett began to perform it live. With an unusual construction, the song opens and closes with the lines, “He went to Paris/Looking for answers/To questions that bothered him so.” In between those lines are four long verses that chronicle a life of 86 years that saw war, music, tragedy, and world travels, with the subject finally, gratefully and graciously, telling the singer, “Jimmy, some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic/But I had a good life all of the way.”

Buffett once explained the song’s origins, “The song was actually about a guy I met in Chicago, and he was the cleanup guy at a club called the Quiet Knight [where several prominent singer/songwriter careers were launched]. He had one arm. And so he started telling me stories about his days fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and when he got wounded, he came back to Paris for his treatment. The song is more reflective of stories that Eddie told me. All they did was accentuate the history in the books that I was familiar with from Hemingway and Fitzgerald. That song was written actually in Chicago of all places, and it was written based on the stories of Eddie. At that point I don’t believe I’d ever been to Paris. You put all that stuff together and mix it like a gumbo.”

Buffett was born on December 25, 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi,  and spent part of his childhood in Mobile and Fairhope, Alabama. After graduating from McGill Institute for Boys, a Catholic high school in Mobile, in 1964, Buffett enrolled at Auburn University and began playing the guitar after seeing a fraternity brother playing surrounded by a group of girls. Buffett left Auburn after a year due to his grades and continued his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1969. After graduating in 1969, Buffett moved to New Orleans, often held street performances for tourists on Decatur Street, and played for drunken crowds in the former Bayou Room nightclub on Bourbon Street. I’m pretty sure I’ve read that Auburn granted him a degree after he became famous, even though he flunked out of the university.

Aside from his career in music, Buffett was also a bestselling author and was involved in two restaurant chains named after two of his best-known songs; he owned Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville restaurant chain and co-developed the now defunct Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant chain. Buffett was one of the world’s richest musicians, with a net worth of $1 billion in 2023. Buffett was involved in many charity efforts. In 1981, Buffett and former Florida governor Bob Graham founded the Save the Manatee Club. In 1989, legislation in Florida introduced the “Save the Manatee” license plate, featuring an image of a West Indian manatee, and earmarked funding for the Save the Manatee Club. Buffett was also a longtime supporter of and major donor to the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory. He has organized several benefit concerts for hurricane relief and for the 2010 BP oil spill that devastated marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. Buffett was also a lifelong Democratic and hosted fundraisers for Democratic politicians, including several for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

After entering hospice care just five days prior, Buffett passed away peacefully in his sleep on September 1, 2023, at his home in Sag Harbor, New York, at the age of 76 from skin cancer (diagnosed in 2019) that had turned into lymphoma. I think it can safely be said that Jimmy himself would say of his life, “Some of it’s magic, some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.” I hope God and Jimmy are having margaritas together and enjoying cheeseburgers in paradise.

Here is a live version from earlier this year (2/9/23):

I tried to find live recordings of the songs I provided links for throughout the post.