Official Jimmy Buffett Day in Florida today and also announcement of a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers deluxe October 18 reissue of their 1982 album with an additional dozen ‘newly discovered’ tracks including some previously recorded but left off.

Plus liner notes!

In the 2007 documentary (4h 19m) Petty describes how before internet and without owning every album from every artist of interest they learned lyrics on the fly by assigning each other sections and deciphering from repeat radio plays.

I cannot recall owning any LPs of my own in the early 1980s though my roommate did and often played her 1979 Volcano album which I assume has liner note lyrics. Thanks to her I did know Buffett’s music. It is on me and my oddity of auditory self that I did not know exactly what he sang in words. But thanks to a doctor-uncle of mine from Charlevoix, also a Buffett fan, I learned (you’re welcome) it is not “dance to the left” but “fins to the left…”—though it took repeat crooked grin refills to this twenty-something-ish version of niece before he opted to clue me in. Also thanks to him I spent that first night of new fin-enlightenment with siblings and cousins at Shangri-La House, Horton Bay which at the time they owned. In my one and only night at Shangri-La, blood-alcohol level recalls little else except one wee-hour wander on the sandy road, and my own, all alone, Michigan night sky.

Countdown: 16/306