Wings

by Jimmy Buffett and Will Kimbrough

from the album Buffet Hotel

Amazon.com Widgets

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Jimmy’s Grumman Goose. Video from Margaritaville.com

Lyrics

I’ve been up around the stratosphere
At 31,000 feet
I’m gonna fly on out of here
On wings that you can’t see
If you’re gonna fly high without fear
You’re gonna have to learn to love the atmosphere
And you gotta learn to use those wings
That you can’t see

I been shreddin’ on the mountains of the moon
On a weekend whim
I been looking out for life on Mars
Ground control to Major Jim
All these things could be yours too
If you’d just take another point of view
Everybody’s got a pair of wings that they can’t see

I’ve got wings that you can’t see
I have wheels on my feet
Way up high I feel free
On these wings you can’t see

I don’t need no runway, I got fuel here in my bong
I can buzz at treetop flyer level all day long
Now I’m looking down on tiny cars
Tiny swimmers in the water
And tiny beach bars
And all because of these wings that you can’t see

I’ve got wings that you can’t see
I have wheels on my feet
Way up high I feel free
On these wings you can’t see

Maybe if you open up your mind
You might learn some things
God only knows what you might find
Floatin’ on those wings
You can try to fly away from all your problems
Well I’m here to say
That ain’t the way to solve them
I can only help you with wings
That you can’t see

We have wings that we can’t see
We have wheels on our feet
Way up high we’ll be free
On these wings we can’t see

You have wings look and see
Silver wings like Merle and me
Come up up to Cloud 9B
Come on take a little taste of freedom
High up in a cloudland kingdom
Take a little trip on wings that you can’t see

Jimmy’s Note:

Let’s face it, I like my wings – the ones you can see on my plane and the ones you can’t see in my brain. They have taken me on some very interesting flights. When I decided to finally get to work on a new album, I realized that as a pilot, the flights to, from and around Africa were as much a part of the adventure as my time in the desert.

Inspired by re-reading my favorite parts of Canterbury Tales, Wind, Sand and Stars, and Treasure Island, I knew I wanted the music to have words you could see and wings you could not. When I heard Will Kimbrough’s song for the first time, it reminded me of a magical moment in the days that I dropped anchor in St. Barth back in 1978. My boat, the Euphoria, was greated by the “boat children of Moon and Venus”, bringing coffee and croissants. I liked the island and the children immediately. I returned the favor by bringing them on board one night and playing them a movie.

In my mad scientist approach to outfitting the boat, I had installed a mammoth video deck, I think the only one of its kind on a boat in the Caribbean in those days before the advent of the VHS tape and DVDs. The tapes were the size of lunch boxes and with space being of primary concern on a voyaging yacht, I had room for only four movies. They were: Black Orpheus, Casablanca, The Man Who Would Be King, and The Wizard Of Oz.

One evening after showing The Wizard Of Oz, I was getting the kids’ reaction to seeing it for the first time (it was probably my 500th), when one of them popped up and said, “I can go to Oz anytime I want.” “Oh really,” I answered, “How can you do that?” “Because I have a car,” he answered. “Really?” I asked. Well, for a ten year old on an island with about twenty total cars at that time, I asked him, “Where do you keep this car?” He smiled, pointed to the side of his head, and replied “It’s in my brain.” I hope you all keep that childish way of figuring out how to use the wings you can’t see or the wheels on your feet, and I hope you use them often.