“One Particular Harbor:” Jimmy Buffett reviewer returns

Well, after a few months of sailing, we have finally arrived at that One Particular Habor, and might I say, the destination is worth the journey. With this, we have the final album I consider a part of the experimental era of Jimmy’s music.

On One Particular Harbor, Jimmy Buffett brings his Caribbean sound to the South Seas of Polynesia, with this album being recorded in Tahiti. This album is home to many songs that I love, and I look forward to sharing why.

Twelve Volt Man was inspired by a man in Mexico who fished all week, then would fire up a generator to make drinks and play Buffett’s music on the weekend. It’s a slow song, in which we see Buffett get introspective on his career and himself. Looking at his lows, he uses analogies to describe how he was never able to meet expectations, and how as a musician, he “never had the clout to knock one out, but hitting was the name of my game,” describing how his music always fell short of what he was meant to produce.

He describes his personal flaws in terms of how he can drastic, sarcastic, and how he lets his feelings show. Though, he does provide a silver lining.

He urges us to just give him a chance, look below the surface, and he might just surprise us, or as he says, he’ll “make sparks fly ‘round your head.” I find this a rather beautiful song, and I think this proves that he can make deeper song, and not just drinking songs.

We are the People Our Parents Warned Us About is an all too real song about the direction life takes us. Our parents give us expectations for what we should be, but life takes over, and we end up far from our plans. It’s a good song because it’s accurate to life and its twists.

For Buffett, all his parents’ aspirations never materialized and his goals of being a Jesuit priest got ditched for a guitar. Furthermore, according to Buffett’s memoir, his dad told him he made a career out of not doing what he was meant to do. This song provides a good lesson for all of us:, the plans that others or even we set for ourselves don’t always need to be followed, it isn’t a bad thing to stray from what seems like a predetermined path for what your life should be.

I absolutely love Stars on the Water. It has rocking guitars, and entertaining lyrics. Though it’s a cover of the Rodney Crowell song, it fits perfectly into Buffett’s discography by paying homage to three places Jimmy held close in his heart: Louisiana, Biloxi, and Mobile. We hear how in the bayous of Louisiana, its either “pirogue pole or your natural soul keeps you tied to a tree high tide” or go over to Biloxi where there’s the “sea breeze at your door.” Lastly, at Buffett’s hometown, Mobile, at midnight there’s “moonbeams on the bay “, and it sounds just beautiful. This song beautifully describes the nightlife of these cities, and the rocking instruments encourage the listeners to go see these places themselves.

With only a guitar, mandolin, and Buffett’s voice, we have the melancholy ballad Distantly in Love. He narrates a story of a long-distance relationship and its inherent emotional roller-coaster. Sitting beside the Southern Ocean, Jimmy writes a letter to his lost lover, who will probably never see it. In it, he details how he tried to phone her from Paris hoping they could rendezvous, but that he “found your number changed.” The letter admits how hard a long-distance relationship is to maintain and how he “can’t be the one to fill your times and all your places.” It’s a sad song without a happy ending, representative of how Buffett was feeling while separated from his wife.

“La ora, te natura, E mea arofa teiei ao nei. Ua pau te maitai no te fenua, Re zai noa ra te ora o te mitie.”

For those of you not fluent in Tahitian, that roughly translates into “Nature lives, have pity of the earth, and the bounty of the land is exhausted, but there is still abundance in the seas.” These Tahitian words open and close the title track, One Particular Harbor. In it, Buffett reminisces “about the good times down in the Caribbean sunshine” and ponders over a special place that he doesn’t go to often enough.

This one particular harbor is a magical place, it is “sheltered from the wind, where the children play on the shore each day, and all are safe within. Most mysterious calling harbor, so far but yet so near.”

The instrumentals are great, and the vocals are top tier, but this song holds so much sentimental meaning. At the end of the final chorus, in reference to this beautiful place, Buffett sings, “I can see the day when my hair’s full gray, and I finally disappear.”

The way this is sang already carries so much emotional weight, but starting in the 2000s, at concerts Buffett would bookend this line by telling everyone, “but not yet.” Now that he has passed away, this song reminds us that he’s not gone from us yet, since he lives on through the music he made.

I am probably looking too much into this, but this line holds a lot of sentimental meaning to me. I love this song, it’s a must listen, and though this isn’t my personal favorite song of Buffett’s, I think it might be objectively one of, if not his best song.

This album is quite well rounded, with another song I like being I Used to Have Money One Time; while there are some songs that aren’t my favorite, they don’t detract from those songs that I find to be amazing.

The reviews are overall pretty good for this album, which is what Buffett needed at this time. Also, the album cover is a vibe, Buffett has a big smile and a traveling suitcase and he’s being hoisted onto a ship.

I look forward to continuing these reviews in the year to come, if you want a hint as to what is next, I suggest you try to solve the Riddles in the Sand.