Raising Two Americans

"I went down to Captain Tony's ..."

Anthony “Tony” Tarracino, better known to many as Captain Tony, died Saturday at the age of 92.

Tony was a former mayor of Key West, Fla., and the owner of Captain Tony’s Saloon since 1958.

He had two movies made about him, but most importantly, he was the subject of a song by Jimmy Buffett, “The Last Mango in Paris.”

On his Web site, Buffett has a short section about Tony.

Here are the lyrics, co-written with Will Jennings, Mike Utley and Spartanburg’s Marshall Chapman …

I went down to Captain Tony’s to get out of the heat
When I heard a voice call out to me, “Son, come have a seat”
I had to search my memory as I looked into those eyes
Our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies

He said, “I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
Took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there’s still so much to be done

I had a third world girl in Buzios
With a pistol in each hand
She always kept me covered
As we moved from land to land
I had a damn good run on wall street
With my high fashion model wife
Til I woke up dry beneath the African sky
Just me and my Swiss Army knife

I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
Took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy there’s still so much to be done

We shot the breeze for hours
As the sun fell from the skies
And like the sun he disappeared before my very eyes
It was somewhere past dark-thirty
When I went back to the head
I read upon the dingy wall
The words the old man said

I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
Took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy there’s still so much to be done

Why don’t we wander and follow la vie dansante

This entry was posted on November 2, 2008 at 4:38 am and is filed under Music with tags Captain Tony, Jimmy Buffett, Marshall Chapman. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.