MARGARITAVILLE This song was written about a drink in Austin, Texas, and the first huge surge of tourist who descended on Key West almost two decades ago. What can I say? People ask if I ever get tired of playing it. The answer is no. It has paid the rent for a long time and seems to put a few minutes of joy into this troubled world when sung by fans at a show. I feel very lucky.

GRAPEFRUIT-JUICY FRUIT The place was the Islander Drive-in Theatre, and the movie was Payday starring Rip Torn. The girl was from St. Petersburg, and she was running away from a bad boyfriend. the popcorn was salty, and the beer was cold.

RAGTOP DAY My mother was thought to be a little crazy by our neighbors when she bought a gold Ford Fairlane convertible instead of the standard housewife station wagon. I loved it. It started my convertible "thing" which still infects me. I've owned a long list of convertibles since that one, and I just don't think cars look right with tops on them.

FRANK AND LOLA Lola is another tough rhyme. Sometimes when you're trying to find it, the rhyme is right under your nose. Pensacola was across the state line, and it rhymed. See? There's nothing to it.

TIN CUP CHALICE This was my first Key West song. I was running from a bad marriage and a trail of debt, and wound up at the end of America. Nobody cared about either there, and they took the time to applaud the sunset at the end of the day. It was a place for me to hang my hat for awhile.

KNEES OF MY HEART Borrowed this line from a letter Sir Walter Raleigh wrote to the Queen of England begging forgiveness for some practical activity. It sounded more like a title of a Motown tune, and I couldn't pass it up. I hope Sir Walter didn't turn over in his grave.

MONEY BACK GUARANTEE When I was working on Bourbon Street as a teenager, the big trill on my day off was to ride out St Charles Avenue on the streetcar to the Audubon Zoo and back. I kept that image and when we got together with the Neville Brothers a few years back, I combined that and the silly ads on television into the lyrics of this song. I do own a bamboo steamer and use it a lot. I never had to use my money back guarantee.

COAST IS CLEAR I grew up on the Alabama Gulf Coast, and it has been a source of a lot of my music. I always like to go home after school is back in session and the crowds have left the beaches. The amusement parks are closed, and one straw covers the artificial turf of the miniature golf course. The tidal pools are once again the domain of the shorebirds, and the water changes it's darker green, signaling the approach of winter. This is the first song Mac Mcanally and I wrote together, and I think it paints the image the way I like to see it. Painting with words can be as much fun as painting with oils.

BILOXI Biloxi was the town I got my start playing music in a place called Trader Jon's. It blew away Hurricane Camille, but the memories of those days along the Mississippi Gulf Coast are still as vivid as the sunsets off toward new Orleans. Jesse Winchester got it right. All I did was sing about something I could relate to.

DISTANTLY IN LOVE Distance and love; this sounds like an oxymoron. The song was written on the beach of Huahine as I watched the sun drop into the Pacific Ocean. Love songs have never been easy to write. Somehow pain and regret seen to be the only things that can trigger my feelings, and songs are the only way to say what I feel-but once your feelings become a song, they don't belong to you anymore. They belong to all those people who identify with them.

COCONUT TELEGRAPH The Coconut Telegraph works as well as a cellular phone or a fax machine and has been around a lot longer.

STARS ON THE WATER This is one of those songs I always wished I had written. Rodney Crowell got it right when he described these great little honky tonks and seafood shacks that sit on the northern edge of the Gulf of Mexico.

WHO'S THE BLOND STRANGER? The good people of Texas kept me alive for a long time when I was not known or could not get work anywhere else. I used to commute from Key West, flying across the Gulf to play my shows-and then I'd go home again. In a two-week stint I'd start in Amarillo and wind up on Padre Island, always amazed that I was still in the same state. There was a bar down there where cowboys tied their horses to the seawall and ate oysters. That image always stuck with me, and I got together with my Texas professor Will Jennings and penned this song.

I HAVE FOUND ME A HOME I bought a red bike shortly after I decided to stay in Key West, and it served me well. Key West has changed drastically from the days when you didn't have to lock up your bike, but it's still the best place I know to ride. The streets are filled with the fragrances of exotic trees and aromas from Cuban and Bahamian kitchens. In all the traveling I have done and all the places I have lived, it still feels like home.

CHRISTMAS IN THE CARIBBEAN I guess since Christmas is my birthday, I should have written at least one Christmas song. This certainly won't give "White Christmas" a run for its money, but it proves the point that snow isn't everything.

VOLCANO One of the wildest times I've ever had in my career was an expedition to the Caribbean Island of Montserrat to record an album. The events which took place could fill a book, and one day they just might. The whole time we were there, the volcano above the studio seemed to be waiting for us to do it justice. One day Keith Sykes came into our house strumming his little Martin, singing the chorus. I took it from there, and the gods of the volcano appeared to be satisfied.

BROWN EYED GIRL This has been one of my favorite songs since the early days in New Orleans when it was first a hit. Rumor had it that Van Morrison was a student at LSU and the stadium in the song was Tiger Stadium. Van's supposed attendance at LSU has been proven untrue, but the song is a summertime anthem. Our addition to this anthem is the great steel drum arrangement written by Robert Greenidge. He thought Van Morrison was from Trinidad and wrote it about the soccer field in Port of Spain. That Van sure got around.