We’re All Ex-Pats in Our Nation We Have Built…The passing of Jimmy Buffet, the emptiness of the American dream amidst the passing of America… Listening again to the song “The Banana Republics”
A great entertainer who gave joy to many has passed. Jimmy Buffet, who died on September 1st, was a genuinely attractive and appealing personality whose attitude and popular narrative toward life can be criticized by some but whose fans credit him with giving them and their lives a reminder of the enjoyment that “things ain’t so bad after all.” A good friend brought to my attention a unique aspect of Buffet’s cultural impact by noting how his songs could often penetrate and critique the American Dream through those who migrated as well as were dispatched to the environment of the Caribbean Islands where the Dream’s failure to deliver could be better assessed. If the American Dream is fittingly everyone’s dream in the 21st century, it is sometimes the case that popular music offers a prologue for the Gospel, which I think, is the case for the song, “The Banana Republics.”
Read the lyrics below and listen to the popular version sung by Jimmy and then for a moving encore, to the rendition by the song’s original author, Steve Goodman. After all, for the follower of the Living Christ, is the American dream not just another universal empty promise which can never be fulfilled on this earth but only delivered by the Savior in the new heaven and the new earth.
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3:20-21
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4
“The Banana Republics” by Steve Goodman
Down to the Banana Republics
Down to the tropical sun
Go the expatriated American
Hopin' to find some fun.
Some of them go for the sailing
Called by the allure of the sea
Tryin' to find what is ailing
Living in the land of the free
Some of them are running to lovers
Leaving no forward address
Some of them are running tons of ganja
Some are running from the IRS.
Late at night you will find them
In the cheap hotels and bars
Hustling the senioritas
While they dance beneath the stars
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a lime
Singin give me some words I can dance to
Or a melody that rhymes.
First you learn the native custom
Soon a word of Spanish or two
You know that you cannot trust them
Cause they know they can't trust you.
Expatriated American feelin' so all alone
Telling themselves the same lies
That they told themselves back home.
Down to the Banana Republics
Things aren't as warm as they seem
None of the natives are buying
Any second hand American dreams.
Late at night you will find them
In the cheap hotels and bars
Hustling the senioritas
While they dance beneath the stars
Spending those renegade pesos
On a bottle of rum and a lime
Singing give me some words I can dance to
Or a melody that rhymes.
Down to the Banana Republics
Down to the tropical sun
Go the expatriated Americans
Hopin' to find some fun.
By Jimmy Buffet -
By Steve Goodman-