#112 – Savannah Fare You Well

by Stacy Loves Buffett · Published February 3, 2025 · Updated February 4, 2025

#112 – Savannah Fare You Well

-by Stacy Garwood-

Sometimes a song catches your attention because of the instrumentation, sometimes it the lyrics. Savannah Fare You Well is one of those songs that fits into both of those categories. It has an almost haunting quality, with a little darkness and a little shimmering imagery, and once you hear it, it will stick with you. Just the other day, the lyrics lamenting “fragile magic” and a “some devil’s mixing fire and ice together,” drifted out from my car radio, and this month’s song presented itself.

“It’s such a fragile magic, A puff of wind can break the spell, And all the golden threads are frail as spider webs, Savannah, fare you well…”

Savannah Fare You Well was released on JB’s 2002 album Far Side Of The World, and it became the first single that Jimmy released on that album. That album was produced by Russ Titelman, and included several songs that weren’t written by Jimmy, including songs written by Lennie Gallant (Mademoiselle/Voulez-Vous Danser), Bruce Cockburn (All The Ways I Want You), Sonny Landreth (USS Zydecoldsmobile), and by Jimmy’s friends and Coral Reefer’s Roger Guth and Peter Mayer (Blue Guitar).

Savannah Fare You Well wasn’t written by Jimmy either, although I have had discussions with people who insist it was… it wasn’t; and that it was written about Jimmy’s daughter, Savannah, leaving for college… it wasn’t. It was written by Hugh Prestwood, and I admit there is a chance that the song did appeal to Jimmy in some way because the title shared a name with his eldest daughter, Savannah Jane.

As mentioned above, this album has several songs that are covers from different artists. Jimmy said in interviews that when making Far Side Of The World, he wanted to make a record “you’d love to add to your collection”. He also mentioned that he wasn’t trying to get on the radio, he was trying to make a song that would appeal to his fan base, and that he didn’t need to write every song on the record when trying to make the record.

“There is something in the wind tonight, Some kind of change in the weather, Somewhere some devil’s mixing fire and ice together, I got a feeling that the dark side of the moon is on the rise, Black as a crow’s feather…”

For this album, which was Jimmy’s first album under his own production company, Mailboat Records, Jimmy chose Russ Titelman to produce. Russ Titelman has worked with quite a list of musicians, including Gordon Lightfoot, Erice Clapton, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Randy Newman, Paul Simon, Brian Wilson, Neil Young, Nancy Sinatra, Christine McVie, and James Taylor, and groups such as the Bee Gees, the Allman Brothers Band, Little Feet and the Monkees. He has won three Grammy’s for his record production efforts, including Higher Love working with Steve Winwood, and Journeyman and Unplugged albums working with Eric Clapton. Russ Titelman worked for Warner Bros. Records for twenty years before branching out as an independent producer in the late nineteen nineties, and even started his own record company, called Walking Liberty Records in New York. He also plays the sitar, which he learned when studying with Ravi Shanker at the Kinnara School of Music in Los Angeles, which I find incredibly interesting.

It was Russ Titelman who played the song Savannah Fare You Well to Jimmy. In an interview with Hugh Prestwood on the Paul Leslie Hour, Prestwood revealed that Russ Titelman and he were friends, which was how Titelman was aware of the song. Hugh Prestwood as said he was surprised when he heard that Jimmy was going to record it, since it wasn’t “a party song”. He also admitted that he worried that when Jimmy got into the recording process, he would find out that the song didn’t quite suit his style. He admits that Jimmy’s version of the song was “well done” and that “I love that cut” of Jimmy’s version of the song. Safe to say, Jimmy probably loved Prestwood’s version and lyrics.

“Now, I could stay another day or two, But what’s the use in stalling, Deep in the winter even holdout leaves start falling, Lately every night above the declarations of our love, I hear the road calling…”

As for myself, I think the song fits Jimmy and his style perfectly. It feels like an easy choice for Jimmy, and since it ended up being the first single Jimmy released from the album, it seems Jimmy was happy with both the song and the recording.

In the Paul Leslie Hour interview, Hugh Prestwood is asked if the song is about the town or is it about a person, and Prestwood admits that he likes ambiguity in his music, and he has done that before in his songwriting. He also admits that the song has touches of darkness and that he has a songwriting theme of leaving places. He says, “the song just went where it went”, which is probably the best way to let a song or story emerge. When asked again, he admits that the song is more about saying goodbye to a person, rather than a place.

And even if the song wasn’t necessarily written about Savannah Georgia, it certainly comes to mind when I hear this song. And I speculate that for Jimmy, he did connect the song to the city of Savannah. In one live recording of this song, he mentions that Savannah is a sailor’s town as part of his introduction before performing the song.

Savannah Georgia is a beautiful city, although I grew up far from it, I connected with it in the late nineties when I was looking for places to study historic preservation. I visited and fell in love with the architecture and the energy, especially of the historic district along the Savannah River. With the beautiful squares that were a part of the original civic design, reaching back into American history to the towns founding in 1733, fell in love with the live oak trees and Spanish Moss in the trees, fell in love with the ghost stories and history, fell in love with the cadence of the Savannah river as it flows out to the ocean. If not for the heat and humidity, I could have called it home.

Which just means that it is often on my mind when planning vacations. Each time I have visited, I have explored a little more and have always enjoyed the charm and uniqueness of Savannah and its surrounding salt marshes that march to the sea. And it’s on my mind when I hear this song, regardless of the song’s inspiration.

I once read a little blip about the writing this song (which turned out to be inaccurate), that the author, Prestwood, wrote Savannah Fare You Well about his hometown of Savannah, and leaving it, but Prestwood is actually Texas raised, calling El Paso his home, although he relocated to New York early in his writing career. He is atypical for being a country music songwriter because he didn’t live and write in Nashville. In the interview, he admits that choice has some challenges in his line of work, but that he is comfortable with his New York location.

Hugh Prestwood was discovered by Judy Collins, who recorded his song Hard Time For Lovers in 1978 and made it a hit. He also has written The Sound Of Goodbye, recorded by Crystal Gayle, and Heard Rock Bottom Of Your Heart, recorded by Randy Travis, both becoming number one hits. He was awarded the Nashville Songwriters Association Song of the Year for his song, The Song Remembers When, which was recorded by Trisha Yearwood.

Prestwood taught songwriting in New York at the New School in Manhattan for over twenty years. He has been nominated for Grammy awards three times, and in 2006, he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jimmy Buffett was also inducted at that same time, which ties the men together in music history. One year after Jimmy Buffett’s death in September of 2023, Hugh Prestwood died of complications related to a stroke, in September of 2024. Although he would probably tell you that the life of a songwriter isn’t easy, he also left the world with hundreds of songs, and his music spawned a tribute album from the artist Sarah Joyce, known by the stage name Rumor, called Nashville Tears – The Songs of Hugh Prestwood in 2020.

“In a vision I had yesterday, It rained so hard that I drowned, While I waited for a hurricane to die down, The raging water rolling over me was wild as a heart, That love cannot tie down…”

The Far Side Of The World album has always been special to me because it was the album that produced the tour of the same name, which was the first time I was able to see Jimmy and The Coral Reefer’s live and in person. In Las Vegas. At the MGM Grand. I took my Mom on that trip, and that was her first Jimmy Buffett concert as well. She wasn’t really a fan at that time, but she was smart enough not to decline a trip to Vegas. She became a huge fan of Jimmy’s music, and that would not be her last Jimmy concert, nor her last trip she was smart enough to say yes too. Our last time seeing Jimmy performing live was at Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 2022, just before we spent several days vacationing in Key West.

But touching back to that Las Vegas concert in May of 2002, after that first show, we had such a great time, we got scalper tickets and went the next night. The tickets were more expensive, the seats were worse, and we still had a blast. So, Far Side Of The World will always have a special place in my heart. And the concert poster, which I managed to get home safely in my luggage and later frame, still has a special place in my home.

And Savannah Far You Well will always have a soft spot in my heart, and it matters not to me that Jimmy didn’t write the song. He recorded it, and I think he enjoyed it, playing it live multiple times over the years. The sound and lyrics have always felt a little mystical, a little haunted and quite a bit mysterious.

When picking songs for Far Side Of The World, Jimmy connected with the idea of “Savannah”, both because it nods to the city on the river of the same name in Georgia, but also because he had recently been traveling in Africa and felt that “savannah” also played to some of the terrain he had seen on his travels. Just as a song can have a feeling or connection depending on who you are and your experience when listening to it, it is much the same for someone recording a song. This song obviously will touch people differently, including the writer, the singer, and each person who hears it.

Savannah Fare You Well a song that is worth listening to, whether it’s the first time or the hundredth.

“It’s such a fragile magic, A puff of wind can break the spell, And all the golden threads are frail as spider webs, Savannah, fare you well…”

Stacy

Please enjoy Savannah Fare You Well. I have included the link below. Enjoy!

2002 Studio Version: