#50 – Far Side Of The World
Day #50 – Far Side Of The World
I think this song sums up not only Jimmy’s love of adventure, but also his appreciation for travel, culture, people and places far from where he grew up. The song tells us about some of his travels and uses his wonderful storytelling skills in the lyrics to paint a gorgeous picture.
***
Original post from 10/21/2023
Day #50 – Far Side Of The World
Far Side Of The World was released on the 2002 album of the same name. This was the first concert tour of JB’s that I made it too; Las Vegas, Memorial Day, 2002. I still have this tour poster decorating my walls 21 years later.
I had such a great time at my first Jimmy Buffett concert that I bought scalper tickets and went again the next night, sat in much poorer seats around a more impaired crowd, and had just as much fun as the night before.
Jimmy has a fun video for this one, and it really fed my love of travel to new and exotic places.
The lyrics of this song are so beautiful and connect with different climates and cultures. Zanzibar and Casablanca and Dakar; Amsterdam and Rome are some of the locations spotlighted in this song.
“A sunset framed by lightning bolts, Burns a lasting memory, And a string of tiny, twinkling lights, Adorn the sausage tree, While the embers from the log fire, They flicker, fly, and twirl, Then drift off towards the cosmos, From the far side of the world” -beautiful words paint a gorgeous picture.
This one also led me down to discover just what the heck a Sausage Tree was, also called Kigelia, a species of tree that grows fruit that appear to be sausage shaped throughout Africa. The fruit is apparently poisonous unless prepared carefully, and then it’s quite intoxicating. I always appreciate it when something makes me curious, and I can learn new things.
Please enjoy Far Side Of The World! It’s a song that will help you connect with the beautiful uniqueness that is connected to travels in tropical locations across the globe.
***
Jimmy was a beautifully gifted writer, and instead of my own hashing through a series of quotes from him, I thought I would just include what he wrote on the album liner notes from Far Side Of The World. Here it is:
My grandfather ran away from home at age 13, jumping from the second story window of a clapboard house on a pleasant looking neighborhood street above the harbour at Sydney, Nova Scotia. He did not return home, he simply said that things hadn’t changed much since he had left. Before Alzheimer’s disease erased his memory, I took my father back up to Nova Scotia to visit our Canadian cousins and we stood in the window of that house looking down at the same view my grandfather saw when he made his decision to see the world. Later that night over a lobster dinner, I asked my dad what he was thinking when we stood there together at that window. He smiled and said, “I’m glad as hell the old man jumped.” “So am I”, I replied.
You never know where your window to the world will appear, but I do know that they seem to be fabricated out of dreams, visions and words from books. If you desire them to be more than that, then you follow the white rabbit down the hole like Alice or head to Nantucket like Ishmael. Now I know that Alice didn’t write back from an Internet Cafe in Wonderland and Ishmael never had the convenience of looking at his little handheld GPS unit and entering a quick waypoint titled “white whale” when Moby Dick first showed himself to the crew of the Pequod. Technology is a part of our world, whether we like it or not. Some would say it has robbed travel of its adventure. Maybe it has to some extent. I admit that I used planes, tour buses, Land Rovers and satellite phones as I moved from the high dunes of the Northern Sahara to the temples along the Nile at Luxor, down the winding course of the Rufiji River in Tanzania ending up in the dense Jungle of equatorial Sao Tome; but there was still plenty of pure adventures along the way enough to inspire a few good songs.
In Innocents Abroad, my old hero Mark Twain said “I flit and flit – for I am ever on the wing – but I avoid the herd. Today I am in Paris tomorrow in Berlin, anon in Rome, but you would look for me in vain in the galleries of the Louvre or the common reports of the gazers in those other capitals. If you would find me, you must look in the unvisited nooks and corners where others never think of going.”
This morning I awoke in the harbour of Bastia, on the island of Corsica where Napoleon was born but unlike my grandfather he never returned home after he left. Late yesterday evening while walking with my son to fulfill a shipboard promise for good behavior of finding him a Corsican dagger, we strolled the ancient streets in the port city. What I expected to find was a trinket in a tourist shop, fabricated of cheap metals and still leather to cash in on the worldwide popularity of Maximus, the Gladiator, but what we discovered was a little piece of the history and mystery of Corsica. We meandered through the narrow streets to escape the waterfront tourist traps and found ourselves in front of a storefront with no sign or name to identify it, but hung in the window was a large knife with a bone handle. The door was ajar but there was a chain that prevented us from entering. Inside a large man with steely eyes and a long beard sat sharpening the blade of an ominous-looking knife. We asked if he was open and he muttered something in French and unlatched the door. As we entered his shop, it became quite apparent to me that what had started out as a shopping trip had suddenly turned into a treasure find. An hour later we not only had found some incredible knives, we had shared stories of their origins with the craftsman who forged them and in the process brought a smile to his face. Cameron asked him, “Are they hard to make?” to which the old man replied “N’importe qui peut faire une cuillere. Je cree des couteaux.” (Anybody can make a spoon I create knives”)
Today we sail on where I am sure new experiences await me. Africa is now encased in story and songs, some of which appear in the collection. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope they work for you the way the stories worked for me, told me by a crusty old sailing captain who as a little boy in Nova Scotia so long ago, looked out the window and saw far beyond the familiar harbour framed in the pane.
– Jimmy Buffett aboard the MV Continental Drifter St. Florence, Corsica. August 12th, 2001. From Far Side Of The World » Jimmy Buffett World
Jimmy’s words are priceless, his thoughts are a window into his love of adventure, and what inspires that love of adventure.
Stacy
Please enjoy Far Side Of The World. I have included the link below. Enjoy!
The link is from Jimmy’s official YouTube channel, which I have no personal affiliation with.
