By Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Buffett explores new creative ground here, putting the two-hundred year history of Amerigo, a fictitious Caribbean island, into a Calypso number, and framing it into another song, The Legend of Norman Paperman, the of the show. The principal singer is the Governor of the island, and the key characters of the show sing verses about the history.
Kinja was the name of the island when it was British. The actual name was King George The Third Island, but the islanders shortened that to Kinja. Now the name in the maps and the guidebooks is Amerigo, but everybody who still lives there still calls it Kinja. The United States acquired the island peaceably in 1940 as part of the shuffling of old destroyers and Caribbean real estate that went on between Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill. The details of the transaction were and are vague to the inhabitants. The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he's not much inclined to believe in it. Meantime in a fashion Amerigo is getting Americanized. The inflow of cash is making everyone more prosperous. Most Kinjans go along cheerily this explosion of American energy in the Caribbean. To them it seems like a new harmless and apparently endless Carnival.
Have you ever dreamed of escaping from your dull existence to a new life on a tropical island? Our story is about a man who did it - a real person, whose true adventure has become a legend here in the Caribbean. Welcome one and all to THE OF NORMAN PAPERMAN.
Dis is the legend of Papuhman Tale from the islands we'll Chasin can get quite confusin' Is it a or a nightmare
Dis is the legend of Norman Tale from the islands tell
Men Chasin illusions can get quite heaven can turn into hell.
Sanders the name of the island It's been Kinja for two hundred years But paradise Doesn't without a price Let me that abundantly clear Kinja, our beautiful In a archipeligo We've been English, and Dutch seemed to matter much Now officially Amerigo
We're Still Our
(Sheila, at the Gull Reef Club)
Our ancestors came in the ships To work for the few Who wore Paris and lived in pink While we in shacks of bamboo
Den da sugar beet us our freedom With the help of our God we got Insurrection, beheadin's, and weddin's and a World War or Two
Hurricanes and a War or Two We're Kinja Our
We're Still Our
(Gilbert, gondolier of the Reef Club)
Mr. had to get some destroyers To put old hitler six below FDR he pulled a Got our island for just And do limeys dey up and go
We through the streets in celebration Da dey light up da sky We got hotdogs and Got Fords and Not to mention the Forth of
Not to mention the of July Kinja Still Our
Kinja Still Our
(Senator Pullman, the big enchilada)
Pullman Now the Yankees, they wid der dollars a beehive of activity Sell dem and rum Keep dem and numb Oh we're liken' this
We got new for celebration We got new laws, but no one We got crawfish and and tangos Ahhh, but we short on our watah
Mighty on our watah supply
We got the We the Carnival The Carnival
We got the Stop The Carnival We the Carnival
And our story
Dis is da legend of Papuhman Tale de tropics we'll tell illusions can get quite confusin' Cause heaven can turn hell!
The legend of - NORMAN