“Riddles in the Sand:” Experimental Buffett

Well, what I label the “experimental” era of Jimmy Buffett’s discography is over, and with it, Buffett’s label just put Jimmy Bowen n charge of the country division. Hes credited with not liking steel guitar and fiddles (cool instruments) and, I would argue, worsening the country music genre. In short, this would give way to a temporary heel turn by Buffett into a more country sound, as is evident from Buffett wearing a cowboy hat on the beach; before Alan Jackson and Kenny Chesney made t cool. Thus, we are entering the country era, with the album Riddles n the Sand.

For our first turn towards country, we follow a funny story of a couple who travel to Galveston Bay, Texas and find themselves cheating on each other with the song Who’s the Blond Stranger? However, both members of this relationship find themselves getting mixed up with blond strangers.

The song’s a funny listen, though some other things I really enjoy are how in the music video for this song Buffett plays the “blond stranger” the main character’s wife is having an affair with, which is quite the casting choice. Additionally in more recent live performances of this song, Buffett would change the line “and some pretty boy with bleach in his hair” to “and some pretty boy who still had his hair”, which is a good way to take balding in stride with comedy. Love In Decline is a song about just about that. It’s a simple song that shows a few different scenes of people who fall in love in precarious and not always the best situations. I personally enjoyed the intro instrumentals and the backing vocals in the outro, which were nice touches.

Keeping with the theme of love, we have a rather cute song, that being Come to the Moon. It’s a song where we have Buffett singing of how he misses his love so much and he reminisces of their time together. His solution to this loneliness is for the two of them to rendezvous, destination: the moon. The lyrics, “half a million miles isn’t far to go, you know I need you so, I hope you still need me” are adorable and the idea of going to the moon together makes for a good song and date idea. One of my favorites lines of the song is he is waiting for her at the moon, and that, “until then, I’m wishing on every star, that you will be here soon”; if that isn’t sweet, I don’t know what is.

What might be my favorite love song off this album is Knees of my Heart. I love the start of the song and the mix of steel drums and guitar for the instrumental. The lyrics detail all the ways that Buffett would show his feeling for his love such as how he would, “swim across the ocean if you tell me so.”

He plans to take her on his boat across the sea to an island where it would be just the two of them. He’s down on the “knees of his heart”, and it is only her who can take him and set his love free. I find the energy of this song pretty fun and it’s among the best songs on this album to me.

The album ends with the song La Vie Dansante. The song discusses many different troubles that could be thrown your way, such as seeing, “the ships heading for the rocks”, or seeing, “the time melting off of the clocks.” However, through different troubles like these, Buffett is able to find solace and peace by following la vie dansante. La vie dansante is a French philosophy, or line of thought, that don’t have a direct translation to
English. The words translate to “the dancing life”, however the actual idea of it means life is short, so you shouldn’t spend any part of it doing anything but having a good time. This is the idea of the dancing life, and it’s a life free of troubles, and only good times are allowed to ensue. It sounds like my kind of philosophy.

Whenever life throws you those troubles that threaten to ruin your day, Buffett invites you to “wander and follow la vie dansante.” I really enjoy this lighthearted song, and I find the concept of la vie dansante something we should all take after, especially these days when the stresses of life always seem to get the best of us.

There are a few more songs off this album that I kind of like. She is Going Out of my Mind is an alright song, it’s another sad love song off the album, I enjoy the slower sound of it, but overall, it’s a fine song. Ragtop Day is another song I enjoy, though I’m not the biggest on the studio version, since it has a little more country sound to it. However, on the 2006 Live Album Jimmy Buffett – Live at Wrigley Field, he plays this song, and it just has more energy and better instrumentals, so overall, it’s fun.

All in all, this album is good, it has a number of songs I enjoy, however, it’s just good to me. There are some songs I really like off this album, but overall, the heights of this album don’t match the heights of some of his past albums. Nine out of the ten songs on the album are love songs, making this, in my eyes, a certified country album. The amount of love and heart-break songs really allows us a glimpse into Buffett’s headspace at this time, that being a period of separation between him and his wife. But all in all, it’s a good album, and now we can look forward to seeing who ate The Last Mango in Paris.