Surfing In A Hurricane

by Jimmy Buffett and Will Kimbrough

from the album Buffet Hotel

Amazon.com Widgets

This text will be replaced

From the Buffet Hotel video collection at Margaritaville.com

Lyrics

I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane
I feel like making love in the pouring rain
I ain’t afraid of dying
I don’t need to explain
I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane

We left the bar last night about half past eight
Down to the Alabama shore
Not the Aloha state
The storm had turned it was too late
And we ain’t the kind to evacuate
The impact zone was calling out my name

A sea monster night full of nothing but fright and fear
St. Christopher might not get our asses outta here
Flooded roads and trailer parks
And maybe a tornado lurking out in the dark
A perfect glide to ride into eternity
I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane
I feel like making love in the pouring rain
I ain’t afraid of dying
I don’t need to explain
I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane

The waves were hard the seas were high
Wicked thunderbolts flashing in my eyes
We swam out to the sandbar in the dark
Howling at the moon and cussing at the sharks

I made the first drop and my cojones were in my throat
Then the second wave launched me like a rocket
That’s all she wrote
Upside down, water on the brain
Pinned on the bottom but feelin’ no pain
Screamin’ like a daemon, paddlin’ out again

I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane
I feel like making love in the pouring rain
I ain’t afraid of dying
There’s no need to explain
I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane

I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane
I feel like making love in the pouring rain
I ain’t afraid of dying
I got no fear in my brain
I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane

I feel like goin’ surfing in a hurricane

Let’s paddle out boys
Killer surf … and I mean killer
Let’s go!

Jimmy’s Note:

Living on the Alabama shore in my early performing years, California, the Mecca of songwriters and surf culture, was the place I really wanted to be. It consumed me and my friends as teenagers. We had no Malibu, San Onofre, Trestles or Rincon. All we had were bars like the Flora-Bama and Club 89 that would cater to our badly reproduced fake IDs and serve us draft beer, while we fed the jukebox a constant supply of quarters, letting the Beach Boys, Dick Dale, Jan and Dean and the Ventures take us in our hearts and minds where few of us would ever really get to.

But every now and then in the limbo existence of Gulf Coast surfers, one of those hurricanes from West Africa would bend around the corner of Florida and put us in its gun sights. These were the days before the mass migration of snowbirds to our shores and before the time when hurricanes and sharks were not 24/7 prime time TV entertainment, but only elements of the natural world that one learned to deal with as a part of life. They were local and personal. They were life threatening, while at the same time, fun and exciting to 18 year old surfers in desperate need of waves as big as those in Califuckinfornia!

It was these kinds of thoughts that flashed through my saltwater soaked brain when I heard Will Kimbrough’s original track of “Bodysurfing in a Hurricane.” In the week we spent last winter on St. Barth working on this song, I surfed my way into the song every morning, before meeting Will at my house for our writing sessions. I never got him on a real board, but I was able to turn his tribute to storm chasing on the Alabama shore into our first, and maybe last, surf song. To all surfers everywhere, all I can say is keep paddling out – especially in a hurricane.