A Pirate Looks at Forty

"A Pirate Looks at Forty" is a song written and performed by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. It was first released on his 1974 album A1A and is the B-side of the single "Presents To Send You."

Buffett wrote the song about Phillips "Phil" Clark, a bartender at the Chart Room where Buffett first performed after his move to Key West, Florida.1 The song contains the bittersweet confession of a modern-day pirate as he looks back on the first 40 years and his life and ponders his future:

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call
Wanted to sail upon your waters since I was three feet tall
Youve seen it all, youve seen it all

Watched the men who rode you switch from sails to steam
And in your belly you hold the treasures few have ever seen
Most of em dream, most of em dream

Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons dont thunder, theres nothin to plunder
Im an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late

Ive done a bit of smugglin, Ive run my share of grass
I made enough money to buy miami, but I pissed it away so fast
Never meant to last, never meant to last

And I have been drunk now for over two weeks
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks
But I got stop wishin, got to go fishin
Down to rock bottom again
Just a few friends, just a few friends

(instrumental)

I go for younger women, lived with several awhile
Though I ran em away, theyd come back one day
Still could manage to smile
Just takes a while, just takes a while

Mother, mother ocean, after all the years Ive found
My occupational hazard being my occupations just not around
I feel like Ive drowned, gonna head uptown

Coda:
I feel like Ive drowned, gonna head uptown