5 Songs You Didn't Know Jimmy Buffett Wrote For Other Famous Musicians

Jimmy Buffett didn't just write story songs, party anthems, and easygoing beachside fantasies for himself — he did it for many other musicians, too. Buffett is known and beloved by his loyal fans called Parrot Heads, and his songs are the ones that every boomer needs on their vacation playlist, affable larks like "Margaritaville" and "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

Buffett's meager volume of Top 40 hits — just five in all — belies his influence on American music and culture from the 1970s until his death in 2023. The singer and songwriter released more than 30 studio albums, published a bunch of books, and ran a valuable merchandising and lifestyle business, but he really seemed to thrive when it came to musical collaboration. Buffett often worked with other musicians, contemporaries and up-and-comers alike. He also wrote such a high volume of material that he could let it go to other artists, should it suit them, or even turn out a tight little composition if he was so much as asked. Here are five songs by prominent artists that came together from the songwriting toil of a major proponent of lazy living, Jimmy Buffett.

Respective "The Voice" host and judge Carson Daly and Blake Shelton teamed up to make "Barmageddon," a 2022 single-season primetime game show on USA that invited celebrity teams to compete in the kind of activities and minor sports one plays in a bar. Shot on location at Shelton's Nashville bar, Ole Red, the plan from the beginning was to feature live music at the top of the show, and before production began, Shelton approached Jimmy Buffett to secure the rights to perform "Margaritaville" in an episode. Buffett gave his blessing because the name of the show amused him, prompting Shelton for a bigger ask: Could Buffett write a brand new song for "Barmageddon" instead? He agreed to perform it on air, no matter how it might turn out. "I figured Jimmy Buffett can pull this off if anybody in the world can," Shelton told USA Insider.

Buffett's contribution: "Barmageddon," which was adopted as the show's theme song, as performed by Shelton. "It ends up being perfect," Shelton proclaimed. "It gets stuck in your head, and I mean, who else can say that Jimmy Buffett wrote the theme song?"

Rapper Tone Loc is a late 1980s two-hit wonder, reaching No. 2 with "Wild Thing" and No. 3 with "Funky Cold Medina." When the hits stopped coming, he focused on acting, landing voice work with his highly recognizable gravelly and low-pitched tone. He provided the voice for Lou, or Goanna, a lizard in the environmentally-minded 1992 animated feature "FernGully: The Last Rainforest." The character's big moment is a spotlight song in which he toys with the idea of eating protagonist Zak, magically shrunk down to bug size. That slow and groovy rap tune is called "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might as Well Be You)," and it was written by Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band director Mike Utley.

Playful, winking, vaguely tropical, and food-centered, "If I'm Gonna Eat Somebody (It Might as Well Be You)" is certainly within Buffett's wheelhouse. "Oh, I seem to get the munchies this time each and every day / go charging through the food chain like gas through a main," go the songwriter's lyrics, as rapped by Tone Loc.

When the laid-back, fun-in-the-sun jamming of Jimmy Buffett met the gentle, folky stylings of James Taylor, the result was something far darker than what anyone would likely have expected. The two singer-songwriters meshed their talents together on "Sugar Trade," which traces the horrific history of its titular subject, explaining that obtaining and processing that food is intrinsically connected to slavery, as well as violence and economic exploitation. Usually, Buffett glorifies the ocean; in "Sugar Trade," he points out that it can be a place for brutality as much as generosity.  

As recorded for the 1981 album "Dad Loves His Work," the bleak tune is among the most underappreciated James Taylor songs. The arrangement is simple enough — guitar, harmonica, bass, and organ — to allow the music to get out of the way so that the words can really land. It's certainly among the most serious, poignant, and poetic compositions of Buffett's career.

At the beginning of the 1950s, Lefty Frizzell helped establish the prevailing style of male country music singers, a template that would last for decades. He went to No. 1 on the country chart in 1950 with the often-covered standard-in-the-making "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time," and just before his death in 1975, he bookended his career with another song that would similarly be re-recorded by many other musicians.

A textbook entry in the country sub-genre of train songs, "Railroad Lady" was composed by Jimmy Buffett and Jerry Jeff Walker well before the former found any sort of success as a recording artist. Telling the story of a charming sex worker who operated on the rails, "Railroad Lady" was originated by Frizzell, and it reached No. 52 on the country chart. The next to record it: Buffett, for his second album, 1973's "A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean." Before the decade was out, Merle Haggard, Walker, Willie Nelson, and J.D. Crowe and the New South covered it, too.

After four self-released albums in the 2010s, country singer-songwriter Caroline Jones issued the indie LP "Bare Feet" in 2018. Granted more exposure by being named one of country's most intriguing rising stars by Billboard, Jones also secured gigs as the opening act for the Zac Brown Band and Jimmy Buffett. Jones got along so well with Buffett and his longtime Coral Reefer Band guitarist Mac McAnally, who brought her into Nashville as a session musician years earlier, that the trio collaborated on a song for the newer artist. The 2019 single "Gulf Coast Girl" later appeared on Jones' 2020 album "Chasin' Me." "I am so honored to sing this song that two of my heroes, mentors and friends — Jimmy Buffett and Mac McAnally — wrote for me," Jones told Billboard.

While written from the point of view of a character Jones could embody, "Gulf Coast Girl" bears the hallmarks of a Buffett song. He, McAnally, Kenny Chesney, and Lukas Nelson all appear on the track, a celebration of Florida that rattles off the names of the state's hotspots, cities, and beaches, and all of the natural and recreational wonders they offer.