Day #45 – Havana Daydreamin’
Day #45 – Havana Daydreamin’
Havana is a city that shows up more than once in Jimmy’s songs. It seems like it’s either a place people are trying to leave or a place that people are trying to get to. Havana is the capital and largest city by population in Cuba, and the second largest populated city in the Caribbean. Known as La Habana in Spanish, it’s a city that’s history and architecture stir up dreams of the past and the tropics.
Havana started as a Spanish trading port in the early 1500’s and was a key in the expansion of the Caribbean, not just for Spanish ships, but for many nations. It was also a prime port that buccaneers, pirates, and Spain’s enemy France, loved to attack, leading to the building of the first of many fortresses in Havana. Its coat of arms carries a golden key, tying it to its colonial title of Key of the Caribbean.
It was captured by the British during the Seven Years War and held for almost a year. In that short time, the culture of the city quickly adapted with this new influence. The city was ceded back to Spain in a treaty that gave the British the entire area that was Florida. After this, the Spanish constructed the heaviest fortifications in the New World. Spain did not want to lose its prize again! Cuba did move from Spanish control at the very end of the 19th century into a self-governing republic, which it remained until Fidel Castro led revolution of the late fifties, with Castro’s forces finally victorious in 1959, leading to large changes for Cuba’s relations with its close neighbor, the United States, but also in its politics and relations around the world.
In the course of its diverse history, Havana became a thriving city with a fashionable and distinguished theatre and society, with thriving growth of both middle and upper classes. Slavery was legal in Cuba until 1886, and many former slave holders from the Confederate States of America moved operations to Cuba after the US Civil War, another tie between the nations.
Havana is known for its great harbor and fortresses that protected the harbor as well as the city. Only once after fortifications were built that it was breached, but in less than one year, the city was back in Spanish hands. The harbor is deep, and at one time marked the only dry dock in the Caribbean, making it vastly important. Thinking of Havana harbor also brings to mind Jimmy’s mention of it in False Echoes.
This is no history lesson on Havana by any means, but I thought I would paint a bit of a picture about a city that is vastly important to the Caribbean, past and present. I have never been there, but Havana is mentioned as one of the more beautiful cities in the Caribbean, with its architecture inspired by the past, including homes, municipal buildings, plazas, and cathedrals.
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Original post from 10/16/2023
Day #45 – Havana Daydreamin’
Havana Daydreamin’ was released on JB’s 1976 album of the same name and it was the first single that was released from this record. This song and album are considered “classic Buffett” and a gold standard among his fans.
This song is lyrical, heartfelt, poetry set to music and listening to it always puts me right into the song’s location. The lyrics are sophisticated and also a bit vague, but you get the idea that the protagonist of the song is right on the edge of questionable choices that could lead to trouble.
“Sailin’ on a midnight boat, There were no questions asked, The water so green and the air so clean, He just stuck right to his task … Havana Daydreamin’…”
I also want to give a shout out to this album cover, one of my favorites. Jimmy in a leisure suit, hair flowing and mustache almost with a personality of its own. It says both seventies and the relaxed island vibe that Jimmy was living at the time, and it feels like a piece of art. It’s a far cry from Jimmy sitting in a junk car from his first album cover.
This album has so many great songs that I honestly want to share them all, but today feels like a Havana Daydreamin’ type of day. Please enjoy this song. I’ve included the link in the comments below.
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Jimmy visited Cuba several times in his life, even performing at the Havana Jazz Festival in 2015, after the official travel ban that allowed Americans to visit was lifted. Jimmy visited several times before, as early as 1983 when he went to help with a documentary on Ernest Hemingway, a literary hero of Jimmy’s who also had strong ties to Key West. He also managed to pull off a visit in 1999 as an official correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine on the occasion of the Pope visiting Havana. I have no doubt that Jimmy manifested those occasions through his interest, charm and dogged determination.
To me, thinking about Havana brings up thoughts of summer days and siesta’s, hot coffee, and the smell of flowers blooming in the air, tropical breezes touching everything and everyone. I don’t know if I will ever see Havana in person, but I am thankful that Jimmy’s music can take me to visit every now and then.
Stacy
Please enjoy Havana Daydreamin’. I have included the link below. Enjoy!
The link is from Jimmy’s official YouTube channel, which I have no personal affiliation with.
