#114 – Kick It In Second Wind

by Stacy Loves Buffett · Published April 7, 2025 · Updated April 7, 2025

#114 – Kick It In Second Wind

-by Stacy Garwood-

This month, we are traveling back to the seventies, to “classic” Buffett, to the Key West days and the music that was part of Jimmy’s transition from folk/country to creating his own sound, which would later be termed Gulf and Western. The song we are highlighting is one of those songs that not only connect to the life that Jimmy was living at the time, as a new artist making a living touring honky tonks and beach bars and a few hotel lounges, along with the party-hard-until-you-drop mentality that came with it. Kick It In Second Wind is funny, truthful and a little bit rowdy, and captures Jimmy’s life at that time in lyrical detail.

“So won’t you kick it in second wind, We got two more hours to go, Is there anymore hope of scoring anymore coke, And we’ve still got to do another show…”

Kick It In Second Wind was a song cut and released on JB’s 1976 masterpiece album Havana Daydreamin’. Havana Daydreamin’ was produced by Don Gant and was released by ABC Records. It was recorded at Young ‘Un Sound in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and the Creative Workshop in Nashville, Tennessee. ABC was sold to MCA Records in 1979, who would reissue the album on CD in 1987. Some interesting things happened with ABC’s original album release, which I will touch on in a bit.

Havana Daydreamin’ featured album artwork by David Jarvis, and it might be the cover artwork that most absolutely sums up Jimmy’s music, his style and the life he was living at the time, along with long hair, a mustache, a wide collar and a leisure suit. Jimmy’s friend and fellow artist and writer, Tom Corcoran, had done several of Jimmy’s album cover photo shoots, which are absolutely priceless and memorable images. Tom was again going to shoot the cover for Jimmy’s newest album, which was recorded in 1975 and set for release in early 1976. According to a story that was told by Tom, and reposted on Facebook on Jimmy’s official page, Jimmy and Tom set out and shot some photo’s in Key West, with the focus on the lifestyle of Key West and Caroline Street as the backdrop, since Woman Going Crazy On Caroline Street was a song that was a major focus on Jimmy’s album.

According to Tom’s story, the two men spent the day taking photographs, all the while, Jimmy was in possession of an envelope that contained a mystery image. At the end of the day, Tom asked Jimmy if he was going to open that envelope, and so Jimmy did, with a huge smile forming on his face as he looked at an image of himself. Tom said he took one look at that artwork and pretty much declared that image right there was Jimmy’s album cover. And so it was.

David Jarvis was an illustrator and portrait painter and had also worked for Walt Disney Animation as a background painter. I am not sure of the chain of events that led to David Jarvis painting a picture of Jimmy, for Jimmy, but it ended up being one of Jimmy’s most iconic album covers ever. And Jimmy had some great album covers in his years in making music. Cheers to David Jarvis for capturing a vision of Jimmy that will live on forever in the heart of Jimmy Buffett fans everywhere.

“One O’clock in the morning, People piling into the door, Drinks are still coming in and, I’m barely humming and, The audience is screaming for more…”

Havana Daydreamin’ was Jimmy’s first studio album since his hit 1974 album A1A, which was one of two albums Jimmy released in 1974, the other being Living And Dying In ¾ Time. In between, Jimmy had a little musical action with the soundtrack for Rancho Deluxe in 1975, which is special to my heart, since I am a Montana girl, at heart and in truth.

Havana Daydreamin’ is interesting because it originally was not a song on the album at all, and the album was originally intended to be titled Second Wind, with Kick It In Second Wind as the first song on the first side. In fact, the album contained several songs that didn’t ever make an album, including Please Take your Drunken 15 Year Old Girlfriend Home and Train To Dixieland. And a few of these albums were even pressed in vinyl and shipped out in the Havana Daydreamin’ cover. I have an original vinyl from 1976, but it’s just as it was supposed to be, although I have read stories from people that have the alternative pressed record. No one knows how many of these albums were actually shipped out, but legends exist of these copies, as if they are a unicorn. And maybe they are. At least more than a handful. What an odd mistake, although it did happen at times in the industry.

From what I understand, before albums were finalized, copies were pressed and sent out to the artist or the record company executives, to get a feel for how an album was going to sound. But usually, they did not get sent out to the public for sale, and with an actual album cover that didn’t match the songs on the record. But that it happened to Jimmy is just another fun part of the lore of Jimmy Buffett’s life and music career.

Anyway, there are rumors tied to this album of other pressed albums that contained other songs, but I can’t find any proof that those stories have any truth, or that those other songs exist. But the first version of the song Kick It In Second Wind did exist and I have heard it on YouTube, with slightly different lyrics and a slightly different sound. Having heard it, along with Train To Dixieland and Please Take Your Drunken 15 Year Old Girlfriend Home, I know that Jimmy recorded those; the other rumored songs will have to continue to be a mystery. Since we are focused on Kick It In Second Wind, I will post the alternative version to listen to, for those that are interested.

“My mind started to wander, In the middle of the second song, Dreaming I was at sea, just my baby and me, When the words started coming out wrong…”

Kick It In Second Wind is credited to Jimmy Buffett and Jane Slagsvol, who later became Jimmy’s Jane, the lady he made his Missus. in a lauded Aspen wedding celebration, and who later became the mother of his wonderful children. Jane is also credited with cowriting Something So Feminine About A Mandolin, also on Havana Daydreamin’.

From Jimmy’s Parrot Head Handbook, which was part of the four disc set Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads that was released in 1992, Jimmy says about Kick It In Second Wind, “this came out of those days at the Troubadour and the famous “third show”. I don’t remember too many of them, as you can imagine the state of the band that takes the stage at two in the morning. The third show at the Troubadour was sort of the Pork Chop Hill of rock ’n roll – some of us made it, some of us didn’t. I guess I was lucky.”

There are several interesting things in this statement, one of which is the nod to Pork Chop Hill. Whether Jimmy was talking about the 1959 Gregory Peck film called Pork Chop Hill, which is based on a location and ongoing battle during the Korean War for Hill 255, nicknamed Pork Chop Hill because of how it was shaped on maps. I haven’t seen the movie, but I am a history major in college many years ago, and during a class on the Korean War, we focused quit a bit of attention to this little hill in Korea that held the attention of many a commander and took the life of many a soldier. The detail, the attention, the time and the blood invested into this place is fascinating and quite sobering. A battle of attrition is how I think of it, and in many ways, Jimmy’s analogy to tying it to performing on stage night after night after night is probably quite accurate, whether he meant the movie or the actual war for Hill 255.

As to the rest of Jimmy’s quote, The Troubadour is an iconic West Hollywood club, and many a music or comedy legend has taken their place on that stage. The Troubadour was the child of Doug Westin, who opened the Troubadour as a coffee house in 1957 on La Cienega Boulevard, before moving to the current location on Santa Monica Boulevard in 1961. The place was and still is famous for the barrage of artists who have performed on its stage. So many artists, it would take pages to list them all, but a few notables, besides Jimmy Buffett, are Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, Elton John, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, as well as bands such as Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay and Stone Temple Pilots, along with comedians such as Steve Martin, the Smothers Brothers, Richard Pryor and Cheech and Chong.

The Troubadour comes up in legendary stories, such as when John Lennon and Harry Nilsson were thrown out of the club for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers on stage, with assault charges pressed and John Lennon nearly being deported because of the issue. It’s a long, complicated story, and who knows the actual truth. Sometimes Ringo Starr’s name is mentioned, but he hardly seems like the heckling type. I am a Beatles fan, so those stories are interesting to me.

The founder of the Troubadour, Doug Westin died in 1999, and his name was added to the front signage as a tribute to him. The Troubadour is still open and active, but like many businesses, was challenged by the Covid closures. It managed to survive and is still serving the entertainment industry and the artists who make it all happen.

Jimmy played the Troubadour multiple times in the seventies, with a notable occasion being in April of 1974. After a forty-year absence, Jimmy Buffett again graced the stage of the Troubadour in 2019, joining Lukas Nelson, son of Willie Nelson, on stage for a performance of Margaritaville.

“Somebodies locked in the bathroom, Manager can’t find the key, I pity that man but from where I stand, It’s looking like the prisoner is me…”

I was introduced to Kick It In Second Wind from the Bar’s portion of Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads, right at the beginning of my discovery of the music of Jimmy Buffett, and this song immediately connected with me. Certainly, because I was bartending during college, and had witnessed it happen to other people, even having had to break them out of the bathroom. And maybe perhaps because I was also nineteen and had absolutely locked myself in that very same bathroom, at least on one memorable occasion. Walking in the footsteps of my hero Jimmy. Something about Kick It In Second Wind really appealed to me at that time, and the song still rings true for me, even though I haven’t been accidentally locked in a bathroom for years. I swear!

And we all have that one friend you just can’t trust to remain upright…

“Waitresses are picking up glasses, The bartender screamed last call, When I looked to my right I saw a terrible sight, As the bass man took a bad fall…”

One thing I have always found interesting is that Jimmy never released Kick It In Second Wind as a single, especially considering he had originally felt strong enough about the song to place it as the number one song on his prototype album and name the album after it. Instead, Havana Daydreamin’ released Havana Daydreamin’, Captain and the Kid, and Woman Coin’ Crazy On Caroline Street as singles (all absolutely fabulous songs) and Kick It In Second Wind didn’t even make a B-side. If I had ever been blessed to met Jimmy, it was one of the questions I would have liked to have asked him about.

I hope you have enjoyed this walk alongside one of Jimmy’s less well-known songs, but certainly not less loved by his fans.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning, Running on adrenalin, What I’m trying to say is that tomorrow’s today, And we’ve got to do it all over again…”

Stacy

Please enjoy Kick It In Second Wind. I have included the link below to Jimmy’s studio version and the alternative version, which was recorded first. Enjoy!

1976 Studio Version: