The Country Satire That Jimmy Buffett Wrote Under the Monopoly Board Game Alias Marvin Gardens, “Why Don’t We Get Drunk”

When Jimmy Buffett was working on his 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean in Nashville, Tennessee, he started hearing lots of “suggestive” country love songs, including Norma Jean’s “Let’s Go All the Way” and was inspired to write a more satirical version.

At first, the song was such a joke, that Buffett wasn’t even considering putting it on the album.

“I figured I would write a song that would leave no doubt in anybody’s mind,” said Buffett in the liner notes of his 1992 compilation Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads. “I thought back to a late night in an Atlanta diner where I was eating and watched this out-of-focus businessman trying to pick up a hooker. That’s all the inspiration I needed.”

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Controversial Lyrics and Jukebox Sales

Buffett’s lyrics are pretty explicit: Why don’t we get drunk and screw. He even goes on to describe where he’d like to do the said deed, a water bed—filled up for me and you. The lyrics were a bit controversial but it ended up getting him more air time.

“We did it foolin’ around in one take,” remembered Buffett in a 1976 interview with High Times. “But immediately that song became controversial, and there were jukebox sales.”

I really do appreciate the fact you’re sittin’ here
Your voice sounds so wonderful
But your face don’t look too clear
So, barmaid, bring a pitcher, another round of brew
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and screw

Why don’t we get drunk and screw
I just bought a water bed, it’s filled up for me and you
They say you are a snuff queen, honey, I don’t think that’s true
So, why don’t we get drunk and screw

Soon after it’s released as a B-side to first A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean single “The Great Filling Station Holdup,” “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” sold more 50,000 copies to jukebox operators. It was never promoted to country radio since the use of the word “screw” was not acceptable at the time.

Throughout the years, Buffett also modified the lyrics when performing the song live to why don’t we get stoned and screw.

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Marvin Gardens (aka Jimmy Buffett)

Buffett wrote the song under the alias Marvin Gardens, which he pulled directly from one of the yellow properties from the Monopoly board game.

His Parrotheads began adding more back story to Marvin Gardens, and gave him the persona as an entertainer who died on April Fools Day, 1989, after hearing Buffett’s Off to See the Lizard.

Coincidentally, there was also a short-lived rock band out of San Francicso called Marvin Gardens in the late 1960s. Led by Janis Joplin-type singer Carol Duke, the never released an album, but a compilation of their recordings, 1968, was released in 2016.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images