1st Annual ULTIMATE Jimmy Buffett Setlist Poll

The 1st Annual (hopefully) Ultimate Jimmy Buffett Setlist Poll is over. I'd like to thank all of the 57 people who took the time to send in their votes. I appreciate your participation. A little over 9% of the entire Buffett list responded.

A little background information before we get to the official results. For the past three years, the owner of the Jimmy Buffett Listserv mailing list has conducted an album survey. The purpose being to see which Buffett album is the most popular with the list members. About the time that the 1997 results were announced, there was some discussion on the listserv about how stagnant the setlists had become at recent Buffett concerts. While I haven't yet had the pleasure of attending a Buffett concert, I thought that it would be interesting to see what the list members came up with for THEIR setlist that they wished Jimmy would sing. (thankx to Lizard Boy for planting the idea for this poll in my often caffeine soaked brain)

I only asked for 15 songs from each poll participant. I realize that an actual concert is longer than 15 songs. I thought that by keeping the poll short, a maximum number of people would be willing to participate.

Each song was assigned one point for every setlist it occurred on. The votes were added up and the top 15 songs were put on the ULTIMATE setlist. As an added attraction, the next 3 top vote getters were included as an encore. (thankx to Curt Blume for making the encore suggestion) In the event of a tie, I had my hedgehog help me determine which song should be included on the setlist. (just kidding - I think)

I have some comments and observations that I'll make after the poll results ...

ULTIMATE Setlist Poll Results

1. Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season (26 pts)
   
2. A Pirate Looks At Fourty (23 pts)
   
3. Tin Cup Chalice (23 pts)
   
4. One Particular Harbour (22 pts)
   
5. Banana Republics (19 pts)
   
6. Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes (18 pts)
   
7. Migration (18 pts)
   
8. Son Of A Son Of A Sailor (17 pts)
   
9. He Went To Paris (17 pts)
   
10. Havana Daydreamin' (16 pts)
    
11. Come Monday (15 pts)
    
12. The Pascagoula Run (15 pts)
    
13. Fins (15 pts)
    
14. We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About (14 pts)
    
15. The Captain And The Kid (13 pts)
    

Encore


• 16. Gypsies In The Palace (12 pts)
• 17. The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful (12 pts)
• 18. The Wino And I Know (12 pts)
  [JB steps up to the mike.] "We'd like to play one more song as a tribute to someone who just recently passed away. This is for Mike Shepard."

• Growing Older But Not Up

Rounding out the top 25 and just barely missing out on getting into the setlist:

19. Pencil Thin Mustache (12 pts)
20. Volcano (11 pts)
21. Twelve Volt Man (11 pts)
22. Southern Cross (11 pts)
23. Wonder Why We Ever Go Home (10 pts)
24. School Boy Heart (10 pts)
25. Fruitcakes (9 pts)

Observations

In addition to keeping track of the votes for each song, I also ranked the albums. I tracked the results from my setlist poll in four different ways.

All Songs:

Ranked the albums according to the number of songs that got votes. In other words, if an album has 13 songs on it and all 13 songs got at least one vote, the album scored 13 points. If a song got more than one vote, it was counted as only one point towards the album total.

Normalized:

Ranked the albums according to the number of songs that got votes, but put each album on equal terms. I was interested to see if the rankings would change. Out of 19 studio albums (didn't include BTB) there were an approximate average of 11 songs per album. The highest score that an album could receive was 11 points. For instance, lets say the album Havana Daydreamin' scored 8 points. The album only has 10 songs on it though. In order to compare the albums equally, the normalized score for this album would be: 8*(11/10)=8.80.

Total Votes:

Ranked the albums according to the number of votes that each song received. I calculated the rankings by first adding up all the votes that the songs on a particular album received. Then, divided by the total number of participants. Let's use Coconut Telegraph as an example: (41/48)=0.85. This is my choice for the most "accurate". I think it reflects the number of times that a song was included on a setlist.

Top 18 Songs:

Ranked the albums according to the songs were included in the ULTIMATE setlist.

I thought it would be fun to compare the results of this poll against the results of the 1997 Album Survey that's run by Bill "Big Dog" Lack. Big Dog graciously allowed me to use some results from that survey.

I found it impossible to draw any kind of conclusions from a head-to-head comparison of the two polls. It's like comparing apples and oranges. I feel that there's a place for each - IMHO. Two possible reasons for the differing results come to mind:

1) There are a different set of people responding to each poll.
2) The way each person went about picking out their votes for each poll was different.

If you do make a comparison, this is how it would look.

Like BD commented, I think you'd find it hard to not support a statement that A1A and CILCIA were the two favorite albums of the majority of Jimmy Buffett fans. I find it a little odd that the two polls ended up agreeing at all. I tried to infer album rankings from individual song choices while the Listserv Album Survey went after album rankings directly. Coincidence? You be the judge. As Johnny Carson might say, "Weird, wild stuff!"

I found it interesting to note that if I included the album "Songs You Know By Heart" in the rankings, it came out as #1. The album would have ended up with 13 points under the All Songs rankings, 2.63 points under the Total Votes rankings, and 7 points under the Top 18 rankings.

Mike Craig noted in his setlist submission:

'This exercise really surprised me, in one sense; I tend to like some of the lesser-known stuff, and to sneer at "SYPTD". I was quite surprised to realize that I had chosen six of the songs on that CD. Maybe it's better than I had thought.... :)'

The high ranking isn't due to SYKBH being an exceptional album, IMO. It just has some of Buffett's most popular songs on it - as a "best of" album should.

If you're interested, you can go to the ULTIMATE Setlist Poll Comments page and see what participants had to say.

Approximately 33% of the songs on my personal setlist ended up on the final ULTIMATE setlist. I also managed to get 8 of my songs in the top 25. How did your setlist end up doing?

I had a lot of fun doing this poll. I'd like to thank everybody again for helping me with this project. Hopefully I'll be able to do it again next year. Maybe even with some refinements!

Special appreciation to Big Dog for lending his support to this poll early on. After doing this, I have a new appreciation for just how much work goes into organizing and tracking a survey. Everybody should send BD a note of thankx for the work that he does. It truly is a labor of love.

If you didn't participate in the poll, I'd be interested in knowing why. I'd like to do this again next year and I'm open to suggestions on how to improve the survey and/or get more participation. Drop me a quick note and let me know what you think. Thankx in advance for your help.

This page last updated August 12, 1997
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