Jimmy Buffett Trivia
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60 free Jimmy Buffett trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
53 free Jimmy Buffett trivia questions with answers. Jimmy Buffett sold a whole way of life along with the records, and these Jimmy Buffett trivia questions cover all of it. The early rounds stick to the songs everyone knows: how many minutes it took to write Margaritaville, where the cheeseburger came from, which single first cracked the Hot 100 and which country star finally won him an award after 30 years. Then it heads for deeper water. There are questions on the 324-copy debut album, the Billboard magazine scoop, the Eagles bassist who named the Parrotheads, the lawsuit against a restaurant chain, the Broadway musical, the seaplane shot at by Jamaican police, the manatee charity, LandShark Lager, the retirement village and the two Hall of Fame honours that arrived after his death in 2023. It suits a Parrothead pre-game, a Margaritaville-themed party or a pub quiz music round. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and primary sources before publication, and each question shows its citation once you have answered.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Gulf Coast town was Jimmy Buffett born in 1946?
Pascagoula, Mississippi
Pascagoula, Mississippi. The family soon moved along the coast to Mobile, Alabama, where his father worked at a shipyard, so Buffett grew up a state away from his birthplace.
Q 02Jimmy Buffett shared his birthday with which holiday?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day. Born on 25 December 1946, he went on to record two holiday albums of his own, Christmas Island and, twenty years later, 'Tis the SeaSon.
Q 03Buffett flunked out of which university after a single year in 1966?
Auburn
Auburn. He enrolled that autumn at a Mississippi junior college instead, and later said he had stayed in higher education to keep out of the Vietnam draft.
Q 04What subject was Buffett's 1969 bachelor's degree in?
History
History. He finished the degree at the University of Southern Mississippi, singing on street corners at weekends to help pay his way through college.
Q 05As a Nashville editorial assistant, Buffett was first to report the breakup of which bluegrass act?
Flatt and Scruggs
Flatt and Scruggs. Buffett broke the story as a reporter for Billboard magazine; the duo parted in 1969, when Earl Scruggs left to play with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue.
Q 06How many copies did Buffett's 1970 debut album sell?
A few hundred
A few hundred. Down to Earth is usually said to have sold 324 copies, and his label then said it had lost the master tapes of the follow-up, which turned up again only once he was a star.
Q 07A 1971 busking expedition persuaded Buffett to move, in spring 1972, to which town?
Key West
Key West. Country singer Jerry Jeff Walker drove him down from Miami in a 1947 Packard, and Buffett decided he had found his new home.
Q 08Which 1973 album was Buffett's first for the ABC/Dunhill label?
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean
A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean. The title is a shrimpy spoof of Marty Robbins's 1957 hit 'A White Sport Coat (and a Pink Carnation)', and Buffett cut the record in Nashville.
Q 09Which 1974 song, written for his future wife, was Buffett's first single to reach the Billboard Hot 100?
Come Monday
Come Monday. He wrote it on the road in 1973, missing Jane, and the single swapped the album's 'Hush Puppies' line for 'hiking shoes'.
Q 10Why was Buffett ejected from his courtside seat at an NBA game in 2001?
Swearing at the officials
Swearing at the officials. The referee had no idea who he was, and when Heat coach Pat Riley asked whether he had never been a Parrothead, the official took it as an insult.
Q 11The Coral Reefer Band's name puns on coral reefs and which meaning of 'reefer'?
Marijuana
Marijuana. Buffett made the joke official in 2019, when he licensed the name Coral Reefer to a line of cannabis products that launched in Florida.
Q 12'Margaritaville' first appeared on which 1977 album?
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes
Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes. Buffett started the song in Austin, Texas, where a margarita eased his hangover before a flight, and finished it once he was back home in Florida.
Q 13In 'Margaritaville', some people claim a woman is to blame, but who does the narrator finally say is at fault?
Himself
Q 21Which 1985 album became the best seller of Buffett's career?
Songs You Know by Heart
Songs You Know by Heart. It kept selling for twenty years and was certified seven-times platinum in 2005, though none of his 1980s studio albums had climbed above No. 30 on the chart.
Q 22Which Coral Reefer Band member, better known as another famous rock group's bassist, coined 'Parrot Head'?
Timothy B. Schmit
Timothy B. Schmit. At a 1985 show at an Ohio amusement park he looked out at a sea of Hawaiian shirts and parrot hats and gave Buffett's returning fans their name.
Q 23The first Parrothead club was founded in 1989 in which city?
Atlanta
Himself. The first chorus insists it's nobody's fault and the second admits it could be his, before the last one owns up; the single reached No. 8 on the Hot 100.
Q 14Buffett claimed he wrote most of 'Margaritaville' in about how long?
Six minutes
Six minutes, by his usual telling, though he once said five. He thought of it as just another song for the album, and it became his only top-ten hit on the Hot 100.
Q 15Which hall of fame inducted 'Margaritaville' in 2016?
Grammy
Grammy Hall of Fame. The 1977 single went in among the 2016 inductees, although Buffett's own Grammy record amounted to two nominations, both for country collaborations recorded decades later.
Q 16Which mishap, by producer Norbert Putnam's account, helped inspire 'Margaritaville'?
He lost a flip-flop on the way home
He lost a flip-flop on the way home, then cut his foot on a pop top and found no salt for his drink. Putnam told him it was a terrible idea for a song, and changed his mind days later.
Q 17Buffett dreamed up 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' after a rough sail ended at which of the British Virgin Islands?
Tortola
Tortola. The ice had melted and the crew were down to canned food and peanut butter when they limped into Road Town, where a marina bar sold him the burger he had been picturing.
Q 18Which Mexican beer sponsored Buffett's tours long before he launched LandShark Lager?
Corona
Corona. Buffett pitched for the sponsorship in 1984, and the brewer went on to borrow his beach-bum image for its advertising as its sales climbed.
Q 19Which 1979 album contained both 'Fins' and its own title track?
Volcano
Volcano. Buffett recorded it on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, beneath the then-dormant Soufrière Hills volcano that gave the album its name and erupted for real in 1995.
Q 20Which restaurant chain's bid to trademark 'Margaritaville' did Buffett fight off in the 1980s?
Chi-Chi's
Chi-Chi's. A song title can't be trademarked, so his lawyers argued instead that the name had become synonymous with Buffett.
Atlanta. Scott Nickerson started the club so that concert friends could meet between Buffett's once-a-year shows there, then went on to found Parrot Heads in Paradise, the umbrella body for clubs everywhere.
Q 24The nickname 'Parrot Heads' for Buffett's fans was a play on the name for which band's followers?
The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead. Buffett had been teasing a 1985 crowd for coming back show after show like Deadheads, and the joke name stuck and grew into an international network of fan clubs.
Q 25The first business called Margaritaville with a link to Buffett opened in 1984 in which Alabama beach town?
Gulf Shores
Gulf Shores. A friend of Buffett's was behind it; the Margaritaville store that opened in Florida the following year is the one that grew into the chain.
Q 26Buffett sang 'Mack the Knife' with which crooner on the 1994 album Duets II?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra. The pair never shared a studio: guests added their parts to vocals he had already recorded with the orchestra, on what proved to be his last studio album.
Q 27Buffett's 2003 duet 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere' was recorded with which country star?
Alan Jackson
Alan Jackson. He had been looking for a song to record with Buffett, and this one already asked 'What would Jimmy Buffett do?' just before the guest's part begins.
Q 28In 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere', which rum cocktail does the narrator ask the bartender to pour?
A Hurricane
A Hurricane. The New Orleans favourite is ordered 'tall and strong' by a man who has decided not to go back to work, in a song that won writers Jim 'Moose' Brown and Don Rollins a Grammy.
Q 29Which 2004 album became Buffett's only No. 1 on the Billboard 200?
License to Chill
License to Chill. His first chart-topping album came from the country music he had failed at in Nashville three decades earlier: it is a set of country duets, most of them covers.
Q 30Buffett's 1998 memoir is built around a family trip he took to celebrate what?
His 50th birthday
His 50th birthday. He flew his family around the Caribbean and South America by seaplane, and the logbook he kept on the way became A Pirate Looks at Fifty.