From American Songwiter: Matt Hoggatt took first place in the American Songwriter Lyric Contest with the song “Dear Jimmy Buffett”.
“Dear Jimmy Buffett” is an open letter of sorts – how did you come to write it?
I live in the town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where Jimmy Buffet grew up, so we share the same stomping ground. He was one of the first songwriters I started studying and listening to as a kid. Oftentimes the songs I was writing were compared to his work, and I thought it would be funny to be playing in a bar one day and have him walk in and hear me singing about him. Later in life, I thought about writing him a letter and telling him all the things I was thinking, but if I turned that letter into a song, it would be 30 minutes long. I had to whittle it down to three minutes, and that’s where “Dear Jimmy Buffett” came from.