By Gregory Harshfield, 2025
There are sharks in the water, and not all of them have dorsal fins.
In the sunlit surf of Jimmy Buffett’s 1979 single “Fins,” the threat isn’t a toothy great white circling below, it’s the sleek, suntanned “land sharks” who prowl the sandbars, drinks in hand, eyes on the next easy catch. Released just four years after Jaws terrified theatergoers with the primal fear of deep water, Buffett’s Fins offers a playful, poetic inversion of Spielberg’s sea-bound predator.
Where Jaws gave us blood in the tide, Fins gives us margaritas, mirages, and men with ulterior motives.
The Meaning Beneath the Melody
On the surface, Fins is a crowd-pleasing anthem, a beach bar staple that makes arms rise like dorsal fins in drunken unison. But its lyrics tell the story of a woman who “came down from Cincinnati,” escaping her midwestern life for the salt air of the Florida Keys. Yet instead of serenity, she finds herself surrounded by “sharks that can swim on the land,” circling with practiced charm and beach-bum bravado.
“Can’t you feel them circling honey / Can’t you feel them swimming around?”
Buffett isn’t just warning her, he’s warning all of us. In this tale of sunburned escape, the real danger isn’t beneath the waves. It’s the disarming, smiling predators in flip-flops and aviators.
A Poetic Reading
Like a seashell echoing the distant roar of the ocean, Fins contains more than its bright beat suggests. It is a story of disillusionment wrapped in conga drums, a playful poem in which:
- The ocean is freedom, vast and blue, a dream of reinvention.
- The beach is a borderland, where fantasy meets reality.
- The land sharks are desire, transient and predatory.
The chorus, repetitive and chant-like, echoes a kind of tribal ritual, as if warning signals are being sent to the listener in rhythm: Look out, the sharks are closer than you think.
Buffett, Jaws, and the American Coastal Psyche
Fins was released on the album Volcano in 1979, during a time when Jimmy Buffett’s persona as the tropical troubadour was reaching full bloom. Just a few years earlier, Jaws (1975) had transformed Martha’s Vineyard into Amity Island and injected a new kind of dread into American summers.
Where Jaws represented the dangers of nature, Fins hinted at the dangers of culture, how escapism could easily morph into entrapment. The irony is sharp: both stories involve a beach, a shark, and a female protagonist, but the tone diverges. Jaws stalks the edges of horror; Fins sashays through satire.
And yet, both linger in the imagination because they tap into the same briny well of fear and fantasy: the ocean as a place of transformation and danger.
Legacy and Laughter
As we mark 50 years of Jaws, it feels only right to celebrate not only the monsters below but the metaphors above. Jimmy Buffett, who passed away in 2023, left behind a treasure trove of songs that reshaped how Americans view leisure, longing, and life on the coast.
Fins remains one of his most enduring works, not because it’s his most profound, but because it manages to be fun, funny, and slyly cautionary. It invites us to dance, even while whispering, watch your back.
So whether you’re drifting on the tide or dancing on a pier, remember: some sharks don’t need a fin to find you.
Fins to the left, fins to the right, you’re the only bait in town tonight.
