Mauna Loa’s eruption brought to mind my son’s favorite Deep Thought by Jack Handy: “If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ’em go, because man, they’re gone.”
Jimmy Buffett was early in his musical transition from character to caricature when “Volcano” arrived as the title track to his 1979 LP, two years and two albums after his biggest hit. His concerts were making him more money than his records so he played a lot of them. They were just beginning to attract the aloha-shirted party crowd (bassist Timothy B. Schmit, then with Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band, coined the term “parrothead” in 1985), but already he had started writing to his audience.
As a single “Volcano” flowed like lava to No. 66 on the US Hot 100 — Buffett never sold a lot of records (No. 8 hit “Margaritaville” was his only Top 10 single) — but it was a No. 1 hit in Canada.
Buffett, of course, went on to amass a fortune as an author and restaurateur. Now 75, he still plays a few dates a year — he’s got shows scheduled for next spring in Vegas.