#111 – Weather With You

by Stacy Loves Buffett · Published January 6, 2025 · Updated January 7, 2025

#111 – Weather With You

-by Stacy Garwood-

It seems like the recent weather news had been riddled with winter storm warnings, zig zagging across the map, looking more like toddler scribbles on a piece of paper than any organized weather system, although, predicting the weather probably isn’t easy. And winter storm warnings, perhaps more than any other, can bring a serious case of anxiety and dread. Which doesn’t help lighten anyone’s mood… and this song popped right into my head, as well as right onto my car radio courtesy of RadioMargaritaville.

Weather With You…Because the idea of your mood shifting the weather around you might sound like a science fiction plot, but in many ways, our moods are like weather, and they can shape the overall feeling of our environment, or the room that we happen to walk into.

“Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you…”

Weather With You was released on JB’s 2006 album Take The Weather With You. As a matter of fact, it was the song that inspired the title of the album, but we’ll get to that a bit later. It was recorded at Mailboat Studio in Key West, and was produced by Stan Kellam, Mac McAnally and Michael Utley. The album charted #1 on the US Top Country Album Billboard chart and #4 on the US Billboard 200, making it a bonified hit for Jimmy Buffett and crew. Jimmy enjoyed the song so much, the next year, he put it on his Live In Anguilla album, and Jimmy’s live version is as lovely as the studio version.

Take The Weather With You is an album that see’s more covers on it than songs written by Jimmy himself, although Jimmy always had a good ear for a song and never seemed afraid to place other peoples’ songs on his records, which goes way back to his early albums. But Take The Weather With You is filled with covers, including songs by Jesse Winchester, Mary Gauthier, Merle Haggard and Henry Kapono. And that includes a charming, dreamlike song from the southern hemisphere, Weather With You, written by brothers Neil and Tim Finn.

I will admit that before Jimmy covered this song, I didn’t realize it was a Crowded House song. Or, if I knew, then I long had forgotten. But the popular alternative pop/rock band with equal membership from New Zealand and Australia made this song a hit on their third studio album and took this song to single digits on the UK charts in 1991. And of course, it doesn’t matter what I know or know, what matters is that Jimmy knew the song and liked it. Before Jimmy placed it on this 2006 album, he had covered it live on several occasions, so it seems only fitting to put it on an album dominated by cover songs.

The beauty of the song lies in both its dream-like sound and surreal lyrics. It’s almost like a song that comes out of the fog, or a deeply liminal place, and you aren’t quite sure what you saw, or if you saw anything at all, but you can’t get the feeling that there was indeed something there in the shadows, and it left a lasting impression. Dreamlike is a word I would use to describe this song, both the sound and lyrics, and I think Jimmy’s version does justice to this quality from the original version.

Before we look at the song, let’s take a little look at the Finn brothers, who hail from the majestic and ethereal land of New Zealand. It’s not surprising that two musicians that hail from the Land of the Long White Cloud, also known as Middle Earth, would produce some absolutely captivating songs, such as Weather With You.

Before there was Crowded House, there was a band called Split Ends, later Split Enz. It was founded in 1972 by Tim Finn and Phil Judd, and included Mike Chunn, Miles Goldberg and Mike Howard. The year after its creation, the band changed the spelling of their band name, altering Ends to Enz, which was their way of paying tribute to New Zealand, the land in which they hailed from. As happens with bands, members shift and in 1977, member changes saw Phil Judd and Mike Chun leaving. Joining the band were Nigel Griggs, and Tim Finn’s brother Neil.

Split Enz broke up in 1984, but they left a lasting impression in the New Zealand and Australia. They recorded ten studio albums and had received several awards for most popular group, best song and best album in Australia. The breakup was preceded with Tim Finn announcing he wanted to pursue a solo career, and with both founding members having exited the band, the rest of the band members decided it was best to officially split.

Just a year later, the other Finn brother, Neil, along with Paul Hester and Nick Seymour started a band that was originally called The Mullanes, but by 1986, when their debut album was released, with urging from their record company, the trio changed the band’s name to Crowded House, which was a nod to the lack of space available in their small Los Angeles rental. Crowded House’s self-titled debut album was a hit, and they followed with a less popular album called Temple of The Low Men. The stress of touring and the pressure of trying to live up to expectations from fans and record executives caused turmoil in the band, with members stepping away for weeks at a time, and difficulty writing songs for Neil Finn.

During this time Neil Finn and Tim Finn had their own duo projects going on, called Finn Brothers and were recording an album called Finn, and the brothers had unique chemistry when writing music together.

With Neil Finn under great pressure as the lead songwriter of Crowded House to produce an album with the flare of their debut act, a record producer, who had heard some work that the brother’s Finn had written, suggested using some of the Finn Brother’s songs on Crowded House’s third album, to be called Woodface. Neil asked if Tim would share his songs with the band, and Tim jokingly said he would agree if he was made a member of the band.

And so, Tim Finn joined Crowded House, the members went into the studio and the band’s third album was a hit. Success isn’t everything, and touring takes a toll. Tim wasn’t happy in the band, and mid-album tour left the band to continue to pursue his solo interests. There were no hard feelings from any of the band members over his departure. Tim Finn recalls hearing that Weather With You was a hit, reaching #7 in Europe, and instead of feeling left out by not celebrating with the rest of the band, he was happy to be home and enjoying the success of having cowritten a hit song.

Crowded House is still officially making music and touring, although the band took a long hiatus from 1996 to 2007, with their most recent album called Gravity Stairs released in 2024. It was the band’s eighth studio album, and they continue to bring in huge crowds to their live performances.

It’s hard to say for sure when Jimmy first heard Weather With You, but it is noted that he started playing it in live shows around 2003. He liked it, the crowds liked it, and so it seemed logical to put it on an album, and in 2006, he did just that. As a matter of fact, when putting together songs for the album, Jimmy and crew felt like the song had such good energy, it was the first song they recorded on the project.

In an interview with Steve Huntington on RadioMargaritaville to promote the album’s release, Jimmy said this about Weather With You, “I’d met the Finn Brothers in New Zealand, many…when I first went down there to tour, and I loved their work when they were in Crowded House and I still do. They’re great writers and I’ve always liked that song and I thought we could do it justice. And, we had attempted, just like we had played it in shows a couple times before and it was always good, but once we got in and somehow we got this track done and it was actually the first thing we cut when we went into the studio cause it just felt so good.”

But the song wasn’t quite finished, since a DJ on RadioMargaritaville, her name being Savannah Buffett, had introduced Jimmy (yes, Dad) to a band called Gomez at Jazz Fest in New Orleans. Jimmy liked them, felt like they reminded him a bit of the Finn Brothers, and thought it would be neat if they did some vocals on the song, and with studio magic, Gomez recorded on the track, sent their work back to Jimmy’s studio, and mixing magic happened. Jimmy said, “So and then the other thing is, when we mixed it, I wanted it to really sound like a vocal ensemble and not me with background singers in the back and that’s what I like what Mac did and we talked about that and I sang it like that, because I wanted it to be kinda in that vein that it sounds like it’s an ensemble group and it just worked”.

I will admit that I had never heard of the band Gomez, nor did I know before researching this song, about their inclusion in the recording process. Honestly, one of the best things about this blog project, besides walking down memory lane with many of these songs, is what I am learning in the process. No matter how big a fan you are, the odds are you can’t know every last thing, and I love to continue to learn new things about Jimmy and his music, as much as I enjoy sharing with others.

It really did work. Weather With You has a similar surreal energy that the Crowded House version does, with its own bit of relaxed island flair.

The song also became the inspiration for the album title, Jimmy went on to say, “so again when Party At The End of the World got thrown out as the title Take the Weather With You…Weather With You is the name of the song. But I’ve been accused of doing that. I’ve been accused of having the ability to take the weather with me when of course I can’t, but it’s usually luck, you know, but clouds have parted after days of rain when we hit the stage on more than one occasion so I’m not gonna try to take credit for the weather, but it seems like a good metaphor and uh, I love this song.” Party At The End Of The World would have been a great album title, but I have to say I think they made a perfect choice in Take The Weather With You.

As mentioned earlier, Weather With You was written by New Zealand brothers and musicians Neil Finn and Tim Finn, and it was apparently written in one easy songwriting session, at least according to the brothers.

The creation of this song is in New Zealand, somewhere between two brothers and a guitar, but the song that stars in the lyrics, and inspired the Finn brothers is in the first line written and sung in their own song. The iconic torch jazz classic Stormy Weather. Stormy Weather is a song that goes back to 1933 and The Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City. Stormy Weather, a song immortalized by many, although I am partial to the Lena Horne and Etta James versions, although it is the Ethel Water’s version from 1933 that has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Just to name a few, it’s been recorded by Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland and Duke Ellington. It was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, and its melody and lyrics circled the globe and landed in the southern hemisphere to inspire the Finn brothers to put it into their own iconic song.

Per Neil Finn, the day the brothers got together to write the song, his brother Tim already had the title and the chorus. The brothers were working with the idea that weather is like a mood you carry around in yourself, so no matter where you go, you carry that mood with you. The song that inspired them to feel a bit gloomy and moody was Stormy Weather. Neil Finn said, “We were trying to imagine a time and a place, and the line ‘Walking ‘round the room singing Stormy Weather’ helped us get into some atmosphere of somebody troubled who is always on their own in a room”. so not only did it serve as inspiration, it made the song lyrics, as well.

As to what the song lyrics’ mean, Neil Finn says, “Ultimately, the theme of the song is, of course, that you are creating your own weather, you are making your own environment, always.” I don’t want to deep dive into philosophy, but I think he is exactly right. We create our own weather… and as they say, it takes less work to smile than to frown.

One thing this song really captures is some colorful, descriptive lyrics, some of which are:

“Walking ‘round the room singing Stormy Weather, At 57 Mount Pleasant Street, Now it’s the same room but everything’s different, You can fight the sleep but not the dream…”

“Things ain’t cookin’ in my kitchen, Strange affliction wash over me, Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire, Couldn’t conquer the blue sky…”

“There’s a small boat made of china, going nowhere on the mantelpiece, Do I lie like a lounge room lizard, Or do I sing like a bird released…”

And that’s it. That’s almost the total lyrics, excluding the repetitive chorus, which is:

“Everywhere you go, you always take the weather with you… Everywhere you go, you always take the weather, take the weather with you…”

It could be debated that some music has an overkill of lyrics, but this song will never be accused of that. It says quite a lot in a few surreal, striking lines, and you find them stuck right in your head. Just the way a well written song should be. And one of the lines that has always made an impression on me is “57 Mount Pleasant Street”.

Now, the Finn Brothers report it was a fictional address, although it was inspired by the location of their sister’s home. She lived in Auckland on Mount Pleasant Road, and they used it for inspiration because it contradicts the gloomy, “stormy weather” energy in the song.

As for me and this song, I have always felt a particular connection to this song, perhaps because of the address listed in the song. I also once had Pleasant in my address, 904 Pleasant Street, Miles City, Montana… 59301. And even though I know this song has nothing to do with me, it still connects to a part of my life. Although I am sure that neither their sister’s address nor their lyrical address was riddled with Squirrel’s-Gone-Wild in the attic, which happened to be the case at my apartment building every morning, starting about an hour before sunrise… although it’s also quite a surreal experience.

“Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire, Couldn’t conquer the blue sky…” but squirrels in the attic before dawn just might.

Stacy

Please enjoy Weather With You. I decided to share both the 2006 Studio Version and the 2007 Live In Anguilla Version. I have included the link below. Enjoy!

2006 Studio Album Version: