#85 – Miss You So Badly

by Stacy Loves Buffett · Published February 19, 2024 · Updated February 19, 2024

#85 – Miss You So Badly

-by Stacy Garwood-

Miss You So Badly is one of those Jimmy Buffett songs that has always held a special place in my heart because it mentions a well-known mountain town in the lyrics as if it was a character in a story- Missoula. Therefore, appealing to this Montana girl, even though I am very much a flat lander from the northeastern plains of the Treasure State. It is probably one of the lesser-known songs on JB’s hit album Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes, but the very first time I heard it, the mention of Missoula certainly pricked my ears and made me curious about Jimmy’s time in Montana. And it has now led me down a little trip of Montana history.

It was 1993 and I was nineteen when I really discovered the music of Jimmy Buffett and became a Parrothead (caught hook, line and sinker), and that was long after the seventies, when some of my favorite albums were written and released, such as this one, but I was eager to know more about this song, and what the lyrics were about. What the heck happened in Missoula?

I could read an album jacket and I knew that Jimmy had cowritten this song with Greg Taylor, otherwise known as Fingers in Parrothead lore, long time Coral Reefer Band member and that the song must have something to do with a noteworthy event in Jimmy’s Montana time.

“I guess it all blew up in Missoula, There just was no other way, After months of goin’ crazy, There was nothing left to say, But when the dust had finally settled, And the air had quickly cleared, Whoa, Things were better off than I had feared…”

Honestly, I am not sure what the lyrics are about, and as far as I can find out, neither Jimmy nor Fingers has ever really said what the song was about in any detail, and since both of them passed away in 2023, this will probably remain a mystery. But I still find myself curious.

Greg Taylor was born in Kansas was moved to Mississippi with his family at the age of fourteen. Even before his move to the bluesy music delta state, Greg Taylor liked music, all kinds of music, but especially blues music. In high school, he earned himself the nickname Fingers because of his keyboard playing, but his interest had already been caught by the sounds of the harmonica, and I heard him joke once in an interview that since the harmonica became his signature instrument, his nickname probably should have been Lips.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi is the home of the University of Southern Mississippi, and that educational institution gifted Jimmy with his degree after a couple of false starts. After graduating high school in 1964, same year as my Dad, Jimmy started college at Auburn University. After his first year in college, he had learned to play guitar but had managed to fail out of college. He later attended Pearl River Community College and finally in 1969, he received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi.

Jimmy’s music interests lead him to New Orleans where he really cut his teeth as a performer, and then to Nashville, where he worked for Billboard Magazine as an editorial assistant. A job to pay the bills while he pursued his music career. A music career that led him back to Hattiesburg and the University of Southern Mississippi, where as an alumnus, he was offered a gig playing songs at a place on campus in the evenings for a week. Greg Taylor was a student at “southern miss” at that time.

According to interviews I have seen from both Jimmy and Fingers, Jimmy was performing to a small crowd of “older people”, possibly of only housewives who were taking evening classes, and the song that they both recall him playing was Why Don’t We Get Drunk And Screw. The university did not appreciate the song, but it caught Greg Taylor’s interest. He recalls Jimmy as having long hair and a “ten-gallon hat on”. Somehow the two men started talking, and Fingers sat in with Jimmy’s solo stage act for a few songs. Time enough for Jimmy to see this Finger’s guy could really play the harmonica. And it led to Jimmy asking Fingers to sit in with him for a few more performances out of town later that week. Finger said yes, and that was the start of a great musical relationship and long-term friendship.

But it was still a couple years later before Jimmy asked Fingers to formally be a part of his band, a band he had perhaps jokingly started calling the Coral Reefer Band, but soon realized it was a genius name to tie to the new sound that he was carving out for himself with the influence of the lifestyle and artistic scene in Key West at the time. 1973’s White Sport Coat And A Pink Crustacean was the first of many Jimmy Buffett albums that Fingers Taylor lent his harmonica playing on. As a matter of fact, the hot harmonica performances became a sort of musical staple for the band, who had more harmonica solos than guitar solos in the music.

Miss You So Badly was released on Jimmy’s iconic 1977 album Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes and I swear that every song on this record has a special spot in my heart. I started this tribute quite spontaneously after Jimmy left us in September, on the cusp of Labor Day weekend, and after sharing multiple songs from this record, I joked that I might visit every song on this record, and I really just might. Probably will, actually!

I also want to just give a little credit to this song, since it was the B-side of the Margaritaville single, and that really makes it a part of Margaritaville lore! Cheers to the B-side! Not only is this song on the Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes, a rousing version of it is on Jimmy’s 1978 live album You Had To Be There, where his drunk surgeons turn into drunk cone heads, which always makes me laugh! Jimmy’s live lyric changes were always a treat!

Miss You So Badly is one of those Jimmy Buffett songs that has always held a special place in my heart because it mentions a Montana town, therefore, appealing to this Montana girl, even though I am very much not a mountain girl from the west. Since I grew up almost five hundred miles away from Missoula, the mountainous city in the Bitterroot Valley nicknamed more formally as The Garden City, or sometimes very informally as Zootown, I really don’t have a personal connection to it. However, if you are from Montana, you are from all of Montana, no matter where you kick your shoes off at. Or no matter which college university team you support! (Go Cats! that’s Montana State University in Bozeman, in case you were wondering).

“And I miss you so badly, girl I love you badly, Feelin’ so sad now since I been gone, gone, gone, It gets quite confusin’, It seems that I’m loosin’, Track of the long days since I been home…”

I have heard in an interview that Fingers said he was working on this song, Miss You So Badly while on the bus, missing his wife who was back in Nashville, and that Jimmy helped him “figure it out”. I have no idea what lines or influence belong to each man, or what parts are purely artistic license. The chorus does lead to the idea of being heartsick and lonely, but what about Missoula? And what blew up there?

Missoula Montana is the seat of Missoula County on the western edge of Montana, just about 50 miles from Idaho, and it lies along the Clark Fork River in the Bitterroot Range. Missoula is sometimes called the “hub of five valleys” because of the intersection of multiple mountain ranges, including the Bitterroot, the Sapphire, the Garnet, the Rattlesnake, and Reservation Divide. I think of Missoula as a giant bucket of a town (because of its geography, and nothing bad, I swear), with the town starting down in the flat of the valley but having grown up the sides of all the mountains around it.

The Lewis and Clark expedition twice passed just south of what is now Missoula, and a place called Traveler’s Rest, splitting their team as they did several times along the journey, with Clark heading south along the Bitterroot River and Lewis traveling through Hell Gate Canyon to the northeast. Hell Gate came from the rough translation of “Gate of Hell” from French trappers in the area, tied to the many, many bones found in this valley, both animal and human. Missoula was first settled as a trading post called Hell Gate when it was still part of Washington Territory and went through a few more name changes and a move to Montana Territory before officially becoming Missoula, a shortened version of Missoula Mills. The northern pacific railroad came in 1883 and in 1893, the Montana legislature chose Missoula to be the site of the state’s first university, the University of Montana, U of M, home to the fighting Grizzlies, although the original mascot was the Bears.

Missoula is a rapidly growing and culturally diverse town in the Montana Rockies. It is home to several high schools, which retain the flavor of the region in their names, including Missoula Hell Gate High and Missoula Sentinel High, named so after Mount Sentinel along the edges of the valley that Missoula has grown out of. Mount Sentinel is just east of the University of Montana campus and is the proud bearer of a concrete letter M that honors the university. Mount Sentinel is the home of multiple hiking trails, and a popular location for many, both those who call Missoula home or are just traveling through. I have never hiked to the M on Mount Sentinel, but it is a “rite of passage” to do when in Missoula.

Missoula’s location and atmosphere was also featured in the Robert Redwood film called A River Run’s Through It, starring Brad Pitt and Craig. The film was adapted from a Norman Maclean novel by the same name, and arguably the film’s release was the start of much attention to the Bitterroot Valley. In truth, not that much of the film was shot in the Missoula area, as such things go in the movie making industry.

Jimmy spent time in western Montana in the seventies, more of it to the south in the Bozeman and Livingston areas, including filming the movie Rancho Deluxe that was written by his soon to be brother-in-law Tom McGuane, but his travels did take him to Missoula, at least once.

In the 1970’s, the University of Montana’s library collection was apparently so deficient that it was at risk of losing its accreditation, which would certainly be a black eye on the face of this institution, so in 1972, money was being raised to help fund the library. At this time, a sociology professor gave his students as assignment to organize social service projects either for the community or the university. Some young men and women formed a group to promote a benefit for the library, in the form of a kegger. Yup, a kegger!

If you don’t know, a kegger is defined as a large party at which beer is served from a keg, usually attended by a large number of people, mostly students or young people. It reminds me of high school and bad headaches. But somehow, it seems very Montana to throw a kegger party to raise money for a library fund. Actually, it was controversial even for those times, the free-wheeling seventies, but it was also at the time that more than half of US states dropped the drinking age to eighteen, making this a perfectly legal fundraiser.

The first kegger was held in June of 1972, and drew a crowd of 3,000 people. For $2 a ticket, you could drink unlimited Olympia beer and listen to an assortment of live music. That first year, most of the music was volunteer, fraternity members directed traffic and off-duty sheriff’s deputies provided security, and with little overhead, the group raised $1500 for the library fund. It was officially called the Library Kegger and because U of M’s campus was dry, it was held at Bonner Flats, just outside of Missoula. There were no bathrooms and people just used the woods to relieve themselves, and a great time was had by all.

Such a good time, that they planned another one in 1973 and then again 1974, each year having more beer and bigger crowds. And raising more money for the library fund, which indeed is a noble idea. Although it was always officially called the Library Kegger, by its second year, it was known as the Aber Day Kegger. Many years before a university professor named William Aber, who taught at U of M from its inception in 1895 to 1920 and who had been known for cleaning up campus areas in his free time. Because of professor Aber, each year one day on campus was tied to Aber Day, as a way for students to help with campus beautification projects. By the forties, Aber Day had fallen out of tradition, but in 1973, wanting to keep their Library Kegger supported by the Board of Education, the intrepid planners of the Library Kegger tied their project back to the history of the university and a revamped Aber Day. And then the Library Kegger became known in Montana lore as the Aber Day Kegger.

After three years, the kegger had grown by such proportions that it had outgrown the Bonner Flats location and was moved to the K-O Rodeo Grounds just south of Missoula. This was the year the kegger got portable toilets and people could choose another option besides wandering off into the woods to do their business. This was also the year that the Library Kegger/Aber Day Kegger promoted a half gallon souvenir pitcher, $8 for a pitcher and all the beer you could consume and music you could want to listen to. The organizers used the rodeo grounds wisely and served all of the beer out of the cattle chutes, with kegs packed in ice in stock tanks. The servers and beer were on one side of the cattle chutes, while the wild crowd was on the other. It is said that so much beer was spilled at the taps that year that the crowd and servers were standing in ankle deep mud. And a great time was had by all- again! Montana PBS even made a documentary about the Aber Day Kegger, although I have yet to see it.

“I got a head full of feelin’ higher, And an ear full of Patsy Cline, there is just no one that can touch her, Hell, I’ll hand on every line, Oh, crazy how things happen, It’s incredible but true, The longer I’m gone from you…”

As the kegger grew, so did the national attention and acts that were playing. In 1974, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band played, in 1975, Earl Scruggs and Doug Kershaw entertained, in 1976, Jimmy Buffett, along with Jerry Jeff Walker, a young up and coming sister group called Heart were noted acts, and in 1977, Bonnie Raitt wowed the crowd. In 1976, the kegger raised over $11,000 for the library fund. The Aber Day/Library Kegger grew fast and just as quickly, due to politics, a few negative incidents, concerns of health and sanitation, and drinking and driving as well administrative messes involving feuding beer companies and a picket strike in Missoula due to the decision to use beer from a non-union company, the kegger ended abruptly, with its last year being 1979, in which it actually lost money and no money went to the library fund. But it was a good time while it lasted! And maybe led to a Jimmy Buffett song.

I mention that Jimmy Buffett and his band played the Aber Day/Library Kegger in 1976, and Greg “Fingers” Taylor played as a member of the Coral Reefers. I still don’t know what blew up in Missoula that tied to the opening lyrics of Miss You So Badly, but I have no doubt it had something to do with their time in Missoula at this legendary party tied to the Aber Day Kegger. And whatever it was, I am glad it settled quickly and that we got the charming song from it.

“We’re stayin’ in a holiday inn full of surgeons, I guess they meet there once a year, They exchange physician’s stories and get drunk on Tuborg beer, Then they’re off to catch a stripper, With their eyes glued to her “g”, But I don’t think that I would ever let ‘em cut on me…”

And as curious as I am about what blew up in Missoula, I can only imagine what was going on with all those surgeons at the Holiday Inn, and we probably don’t want to really know. I will say in defense, that medical professionals need to unwind as well, and if you just let them sober up, I am sure that they will take really good care of you. As a nurse, who has unwound a time or two, I can vouch for patient safety down the road.

The lyrics are quite ironic because a good portion of Jimmy’s fan base includes medical professionals unwinding, and it would not shock me if they sang those lyrics the loudest of everyone. Never take yourself too seriously and laughter really is the best medicine. And a few of those medical professionals might even have a souvenir cup from the iconic Aber Day Kegger hay days in Montana.

Stacy

Please enjoy Miss You So Badly. I have included the link below. Enjoy!

1977 Studio Album Version: