Jimmy Buffett -Jamaica Mistaica (Live from Woodstock)

When Machine Gun Fire Became The Hook

Jimmy Buffett released “Jamaica Mistaica” as track two on his twentieth studio album Banana Wind on June 4, 1996, five months after Jamaican authorities shot his seaplane full of holes. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 and sold a million copies, proving Buffett’s Parrothead faithful would follow him anywhere, even into gunfire. The song never released as a single, yet it became his most-performed track from the 1990s, appearing in nearly every annual tour from 1996 through his death in 2023. Charts didn’t matter when you had a story this good. Buffett had turned near-death into entertainment, transforming a terrifying incident into the kind of tale you’d swap over cold beer at a beachside bar.
The song’s chart absence belied its cultural impact. Banana Wind followed the pattern Buffett had established throughout the 1990s. His 1994 album Fruitcakes had reignited commercial momentum after years when his recording career mattered less than his concert empire. The Margaritaville industrial complex was printing money through restaurants, merchandise, and annual tours that felt more like beach parties than concerts. Album sales became secondary to the lifestyle brand, but Banana Wind still moved units. That million-copy milestone put it alongside Fruitcakes and 1992’s box set Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads as his biggest sellers of the decade. The difference was context. Everyone buying Banana Wind knew exactly what they were getting: the album where Jimmy got shot at and laughed about it.
The incident happened on January 16, 1996, two days after Jim Powell, Buffett’s longtime pilot and the model for Billy Cruise in his 1992 novel Where Is Joe Merchant, had warned him not to fly the Hemisphere Dancer over Jamaica’s north coast. Powell cited weather patterns and a hunch that the amphibious Grumman HU-16 Albatross would attract unwanted attention in a region tense about drug smuggling. Buffett ignored the warning. He was celebrating his 50th birthday with a Caribbean tour, flying with U2’s Bono, his wife Ali, their children Jordan and Eve, and Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. They landed in Negril’s waters ostensibly for Jamaican chicken. Authorities saw a seaplane taxiing near shore and opened fire from the lighthouse, the highway, and clifftops. Bono later told the Belfast Telegraph the shooting felt like a James Bond movie except real, that he’d honestly thought everyone would die, that seeing his kids safe afterward was the only relief that mattered.
The Hemisphere Dancer absorbed the damage like it had absorbed decades of Navy service. Built in 1955 as Bureau Number 137928, the Albatross flew search and rescue missions from Okinawa and Kwajalein Atoll, observed nuclear tests during 1956’s Operation Redwing, and accumulated 2,689 flight hours before Navy retirement in August 1967. Buffett purchased the aircraft in November 1995, restored it, and gave it the name that would become synonymous with his aviation obsession. The plane’s V-shaped hull could handle four-foot seas, and JATO rockets allowed takeoffs in rougher conditions. Bullet holes from machine gun fire barely scratched it. Buffett flew the plane actively until 2003, when he retired it to permanent display at Universal CityWalk’s Margaritaville in Orlando, where it sits today after a 2024 refurbishment. The condition for the display was clear: keep it flyworthy. Maintenance teams changed oils and tended engines for twenty years before the recent restoration proved necessary.
Banana Wind included collaborations with Russ Kunkel, Roger Guth, and Peter and Jim Mayer across most tracks, though Buffett wrote “Jamaica Mistaica” solo. The album’s title track was instrumental, letting tropical rhythms speak for themselves. “Desdemona’s Building A Rocketship” referenced characters from Where Is Joe Merchant, while “False Echoes (Havana 1921)” paid tribute to the five-masted barkentine Chickamauga captained by Buffett’s grandfather. James Taylor guested on multiple tracks. The hidden song “Treetop Flyer” closed the album, extending the aviation theme that dominated Buffett’s work. By 1996, Buffett held a commercial pilot license with ratings for multi-engine land and sea aircraft. Flying wasn’t hobby. It was identity, second only to music and possibly equal to his business empire.
The song’s influence rippled beyond Parrothead culture. Buffett’s response to suggestions he sue the Jamaican government became legendary: he said karma probably evened things out, that there were times in his life when he should have been shot at for worse behavior. Instead of litigation, he wrote lyrics about how they’d only come for chicken and weren’t carrying ganja. The Jamaican government apologized once they realized their mistake, but the damage was cultural gold. “Jamaica Mistaica” proved Buffett understood his audience better than radio programmers ever would. Parrotheads didn’t need singles. They needed stories that validated their fantasies about escaping consequence through charm and good humor. The song appeared on countless live albums and bootlegs, each version getting bigger cheers than the last.
Buffett chronicled the entire Caribbean journey in A Pirate Looks at Fifty, his 1998 memoir that hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The book detailed the month-long odyssey with his wife, son, and youngest daughter, revealing that despite extensive clearance efforts, Jamaican authorities only allowed one water landing during the entire trip. The Hemisphere Dancer became more than transportation. It became merchandise, appearing on restaurant menus, clothing, and as namesake for drinks at Margaritaville locations. Palm Beach International Airport even named a departure procedure BUFIT ONE in his honor in 2009, with waypoints including FINNS, PYRUT, and JIMEY. When Buffett died on September 1, 2023, Florida designated August 30 as Jimmy Buffett Day. His daughter Savannah, who vowed to earn her pilot’s license in his honor, officiated the Hemisphere Dancer’s 2024 rededication, declaring the plane belonged back home at CityWalk. The bullet holes remain visible, scars that tell the story better than any press release could manage.