La Vie Dansante 

By: Jimmy Buffett, Michael Utley, Will Jennings 

1984 

[The Dancing Life] 

They can come take it all away 

Break your heart by the light of day 

Drown your love in a distant bay 

So lonely 

See the ships heading for the rocks 

See the time melting off of the clocks 

There's a light shatters all the locks 

And saves me 

It saves me 



That's why I wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes me just where I want 

That's all I want La Vie Dansante 

Why don't you wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes you just where you want 

That's all you want La Vie Dansante 



Miss the beat if you close your eyes 

Every night wears a new disguise 

And I live when a new surprise surrenders 



Feel it all with a willing heart 

Every stop is a place to start 

If you know how to play the part with feeling 

I play with feelings 



That's why I wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes me just where I want 

That's all I want La Vie Dansante 

Why don't you wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes you just where you want 

That's all you want La Vie Dansante 



That's why we wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes us just where we want 

That's all we want La Vie Dansante 

Why don't you wander and follow the dancing life 

On the night wind that takes you just where you want 

That's all you want La Vie Dansante 



That's why we wander and follow La Vie Dansante 

On the night wind that takes us just where we want 

That's all we want La Vie Dansante 



La la la la la la la la la la la la 

La la la la la la la la la la la la 

That's all we want... 



@ALBUM NOTES: 

Back Cover - 

"What goes around comes around" say wise men in bars. Any good artist feels compelled to change, if not doomed to change, and vary his art as much as he varies his life. Starting from the center, Buffett has shot off to a number of usual and unusual planets. Now in RIDDLES IN THE SAND we see him coming home not quite on A-1A, but with the same richness of feeling that informed much of his earlier work. 

Years ago, down in Riviera Beach in southeast Texas, I saw some cowboys ride into town on horseback for a dinner of GULF shrimp AND oysters. If you were Superman you could have seen Key WESTERN off there in the distance. This album has a musical range expanding in an arc from Bob Wills to Bob Marley with the Gulf somehow always there: a low and high tidal range, sweet and piney like the Delta soil, Caribbean Islands white with coral dust, ladies as moist and sweet as a fresh broken conch. Rather than a return, Buffett is starting out from the center again, with a vast expansion both musically and emotionally. The music is a triumph for an American sound. 

- Jim Harrison 



Sleeve - 

Acoustic Guitar - Jimmy Buffett 

Electric Guitar - Reggie Young 

Electric and Acoustic Guitar - Billy Walker Jr. 

Bass - Emory Gordy 

Keyboards and Synthesizer - Michael Utley 

Keyboards and Synthesizer - John Jarvis 

Drums - Matt Betton 

Steel Drums - Robert Greenidge 

Percussion - Samuel Clayton 

Harmonica - Greg "Fingers" Taylor 

Background Vocals - Jimmy Buffett, Mac McAnally, Wendy Waldman, Thom 

Flora, Larry Lee, Samuel Clayton 



Mac McAnally appears courtesy of Geffen Records 



Produced and Recorded by: Jimmy Bowen for Lynwood Production, Michael Utley and Tony Brown 

Recorded and mixed at Sound Stage Studio 

1st Engineers: Ron Treat - Basic Tracks and Overdubs, Steve Tillisch - Mixdown 

2dn Engineers: Mark Coddington and Vicki Hicks 

Originally mastered at Masterfonics by Glenn Meadows 

Mixed and mastered using the JVC Digital Audio Mastering System 

Photography by Jim Shea 

Drawings on the sleeve by: Savannah Jane Buffett, Maura and Melanie Lyons. 



Art Direction by Jeff Adamoff 



Very Special Thanks to: 

Nashville - Johnny Dickinson, Charlie Allen, Will "Dr. Wheeeel" Jennings, "Dirt" Lanier, Jessie Noble, Abbe Demontbreun and to the Consistent Nutrition Experts Hap Towned, Luthers' Bar BQ, Mac's Cafe and the Ellistio Place Soda Shop 

At the Gulf - Dan Sweet, Kenny Wall, Greer and Brooke Radcliff and "Rusty" the Wonder Horse 

Out West - Howard Kaufman, Bobby Liberman and Nina Avramides-Berducat 



"This album is dedicated with much love to Jane Slagsvol Buffett, who over the years, has been and remains, the ultimate riddle in the sand."