Gulf Coast Girl

Album: released as a single (2019)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Caroline Jones wasn't raised a Gulf Coast girl (she's from Greenwich, Connecticut), but touring with Jimmy Buffett in 2017 gave her an appreciation for the laid-back lifestyle found on the Gulf Coast of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. "It's a whole culture and a whole lifestyle in itself," she said of touring with Buffett in a Songfacts interview. "In the beginning it was something to get used to because I hadn't seen it before, but the Parrot Heads are just such a special, unique group of people and it's so interesting because they're all walks of life with all different jobs - doctors and lawyers by day and then at night they put a parrot on their head and have a margarita in their hand and are wearing a Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops."
  • Jones' backing band on this track is The Pelicanaires, which is Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney, Lukas Nelson and Mac McAnally. Buffett and Mac McAnally wrote the song, which was released as a single on Buffett's Mailboat Records.

    Buffett and Mac McAnally spent much of their lives on the Gulf Coast; before Jones recorded the song, they told her all about it, filling her in with anecdotes about the lyrics.
  • Cities mentioned in the song include Pensacola and Tampa/St. Pete in Florida; Mobile and Gulf Shores in Alabama; Pascagoula and Biloxi in Mississippi; Galveston Bay and South Padre in Texas.
  • The video, directed by Stan Kellam, was shot on beaches along the Gulf Coast.

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