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."