THE WEATHER IS HERE, I WISH YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL Graffiti in the bathrooms of good bars has always been a great source of material. I think this one either came from Captain Tony's or the Napoleon House in New Orleans.

TAMPICO TRAUMA The name Tampico has always held a sense of danger for me. I guess it comes from watching the opening scene in Treasure of Sierra Madre when Bogart and Tim Holt won the lottery. Instead of cowboys, I put a couple of rock'n rollers in the coastal town and let my imagination go.

LIVINGSTON SATURDAY NIGHT One day my old friend and now brother-in-law Thomas McGuane came over to my house in Key West and gave me a movie script he had written. He asked me to read it and said he recommended that I write the music. The script was entitled "Rancho Deluxe," and the rest is history. Yes, I am in the movie: in the bar scene, along with Tom and the late Warren Oats. I think it has a lot to do with what I learned that summer in Montana.

CUBAN CRIME OF PASSION There used to be a piano player in Key West named Billy Nine Fingers who told me stories about playing the ferryboat that once ran from Key West to Havana. It made me jealous that I hadn't been around during the wild days of Havana. One day I was reading an article in the Miami Herald about a murder that had taken place in Hialeah in which a love triangle had ended in bloodshed. The reporter called it a "Cuban Crime of Passion." 

FIRST LOOK I ran away from home a lot, from the time I was twelve until now. On this particular occasion, my wife and I were separated, and I took off for Rio to go to the carnival. I went for six days, and stayed three weeks. On Mardi Gras morning, I was standing on a hang-glider launching platform, looking at Rio below me as the sun came up. That is where I started the song, and I finished it after being taught the Portuguese by my friend Angela Brum who lives in Leblon.

THE WINO AND I KNOW This was a song I wrote after listening to Gordon Lightfoot, who has been a great influence on my style. Gordon takes uncommon subject matter and turns it into lyrics that make you listen to what the singer is saying. With all the passing trends of the last two decades, I still haven't changed my style of writing. A good story is never out of fashion. Thanks, God.

THE GREAT FILLING STATION HOLDUP Before convenience stores and crack cocaine became popular, filling station holdups were the big crimes in much of the rural South. I got the idea for this song from an actual newspaper article that described the recovered property from one such holdup. For some reason it just struck me as funny.

WHY DON'T WE GET DRUNK This song was written as a piece of total satire when I did my first album in Nashville. I was hearing a lot of very suggestive country songs-in particular, Conway Twitty's "Let's Go All The Way." I figured I would write a song that would leave no doubt in anybody's mind. I thought back to a late night in an Atlanta diner where I was eating and watching this out-of-focus businessman trying to pick up a hooker. That's all the inspiration I needed.

ELVIS IMITATORS This song was written my Steve Goodman and John Prine. Elvis is still dead or alive, and this song has remained locked away in the vaults of Margaritaville Records for years now, just waiting for the perfect time to be sprung on an unsuspecting public. So against a lot of people's better judgment, I broke it out. So far I have not heard from Elvis, so I don't know if he likes it or not-but I wouldn't be surprised if he's seen at one of our shows this summer.

PENCIL THIN MUSTACHE The thing about writing a song like this is that the older you get, the more people there are who need an explanation of the characters in the song. I shudder to think how old Sky king's niece Penny is today. It all started with that two-toned Ricky Ricardo jacket. I can't wait for them to come back.

KICK IT IN SECOND WIND This came out of those days at the Troubadour and the famous "third show." I don't remember too many of them, as you can imagine the state of a band that takes the stage at two in the morning. The third show at the Troubadour was sort of the "Pork Chop Hill" of rock'n roll-some of us made it, some of us didn't. I guess I was lucky.

DESPERATION SAMBA I wound up in Mexico one day, passing through Tijuana on my way to Rosarito Beach. I was passing through the bizarre streets of this border town listening to the radio from San Diego when the DJ mentioned that it was Halloween. I looked around and realized that none of these people needed a costume.

WHEN SALOME PLAYS THE DRUM Salome and her band played one year at L'Ananas, a restaurant in St. Barts, and she filled the place with tourists and locals who watched her seductively play the drum she held between her legs. Just for the record, Salome was not thrown out of town.

THEY DON'T DANCE LIKE CARMEN NO MORE I loved Carmen Miranda before I knew her name. Her hat was filled with fruit piled up to the sky. I guess this song came out of my "Cuban period" when I first got to Key West and came in contact with the Latin passion for fun.

PASCAGOULA RUN Billy Buffett was the best worst influence in my formative years. He was a sailor through and through and lived life to the fullest. The day he pulled into our driveway in that Jaguar, my heart skipped a beat. And when he asked me to drive him to New Orleans, I didn't realize it, but I had crossed the wild meridian. My alter boy days were done, and my eyes were open wide. Thank you, Uncle Bill.

SENDING THE OLD MAN HOME This song literally came out of the blue. I was in traction on the top floor of Cedars Sinai hospital with my leg broken for the third time, wondering what else could go wrong. I mean, I had done a few bad things, but nothing to deserve three broken legs. That's when the earthquake shook the hospital as if it were a cardboard box. I ordered more painkillers and drifted off. There was a movie on TV called The Gallant Hours starring James Cagney as Admiral "Bull" Halsey, and I flashed between the movie and images of my grandfather and the Officers Club at Pearl Harbor. The collage of images stayed with me the next day when I checked out of the hospital and flew home to Alabama where the ground was flat and didn't move. There I wrote this song. It is still one of my favorites.

DOMINO COLLEGE One of those winters back in the early eighties, Dan Fogelberg showed up in St. Barts, and we took off south aboard that grand old yacht Escapade. The night before, my guitar had been stolen out of my car, and of course we had been inspired by events of the week and wanted to write songs. Now our trip had a mission. We picked up some leads in the marketplace in Charlestown, the main city on the island of Nevis, which led us to the hills to Butlertown, where we met a man who made guitars. On the way to his home, we passed a roadside shed with a cold beer sign and the words "Domino College" painted on a piece of driftwood. I sat in for a few games and was given a quick education by the old men seated around the table. That night, as we lay at anchor under the cliffs below Brimstone Hill listening to the monkeys jabbering in the trees, we stared this song. I have often thought I might like to go back down to Domino College and get my master's degree.