Jimmy Buffett's 1975 Smuggling Song: 'A Pirate Looks at 40'

Jimmy Buffett (image via Billboard)

I've done a bit of smugglin' and I've run my share of grass
I made enough money to buy Miami, but I pissed it away so fast
Never meant to last, never meant to last

One of Jimmy Buffett's most famous songs, "A Pirate Look at 40," is about Phil Clark, a smuggler he knew in Key West. According to Songfacts, "Clark was a modern-day pirate, described in various accounts as a smuggler, a mercenary, a drug runner and an adventurer."

Buffett: "I was never the damn pirate."

"A Pirate Look at 40" appears on Buffett's 1975 album, A1A, was a concert staple with his Coral Reefer Band and the title of his 2000 book. It peaked at No. 101 on the charts. The Mississippi-born singer passed away on September 1 at 76. 

Buffett was featured in the Dec. 1976 issue of High Times.

Dec. 1976 High Times interview with Jimmy Buffett

Asked by Rolling Stone in 1996 if he ever did any smuggling, Buffett repiled: 

"Nah. I was around a lot of pot and came close, but luckily music became the option."

In 1998, he told Time:

"I had never been a dope dealer. I was hangin' in the bars, tryin' to be cool. I was never the damn pirate."

Buffett missed several concerts in May and June due medical issues. His death is being attributed to skin cancer lymphoma.

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Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom

Publisher of CelebStoner.com, former editor of High Times and Freedom Leaf and co-author of Pot Culture and Reefer Movie Madness.