The late, great Jimmy Buffett is a music industry icon. He passed away in 2023 at age 76, but his body of work will forever be youthful and vibrant. To many, his songs represent lively good times, a carefree way of llfe, and a temporary respite from the hum-drum tedium of daily living.
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What many people don't recognize, though, is Buffett's innate gift for songwriting. He really knew how to spin a tune. That talent is evident in the 1973 song, "He Went To Paris." It's a story song - what is more country than that? Per American Songwriter, "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." The tune gained momentum when Buffett started doing it live and a giant like Bob Dylan lauded it.
Waylon Jennings Covered The Song In 1980
Jennings covered it in 1980 on his album, Music Man. Another artist, Doug Supernaw, covered it thirty-one years ago for an album called Deep Thoughts From a Shallow Mind.
Jimmy Buffett Talked About Where The Colorful And Memorable Song Set In Paris Came From
Per the outlet via buffettnews.com, "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...That song was written actually in Chicago of all places, and it was written based on the stories of Eddie."
Balchowsky's tales ignited memories of the classic writings of Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway for Buffett, he said. That, in conjunction with the noted songster's imagination, led to this song's creation. He drew from all these sources and he came up with a real winner.
Bob Dylan Said He Liked Two Jimmy Buffett Songs
Since the release of the buzzy biopic A Complete Unknown, Bob Dylan has been having a renaissance. Some of his artistic and cultural pronouncements are being revisited. According to American Songwriter via the Huffington Post, in 2011, Dylan said he liked two songs from Jimmy Buffett. One was "Death Of An Unpopular Poet." The other was "He Went To Paris."
