by Eric March
Nibblin’ on sponge cake
Watchin’ the sun bake
All of those tourists covered with oil
A bitter condemnation of the Western Allies’ pre-WWII policy of appeasement, specifically that of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who is said to have furtively “nibbled on sponge cake†while making his infamous “peace for our time†declaration in September 1938.
Strummin’ my six-string
On my front porch swing
Smell those shrimp they’re beginning to boil
Refers specifically to an incident later that year in which Chamberlain, visiting Hitler at his winter home in Dusseldorf, serenaded the Fuhrer with Welsh folk tunes on his front stoop while Eva cooked a scampi inside.
Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville
Beginning in 1933, the Nazi regime began a program of mass extermination that would claim the lives of over 11 million Jews, Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals and others. The Holocaust, as it came to be known, involved the deportation of members of these groups to concentration camps, where most were murdered. Many who were not executed immediately would literally “waste away†in
these camps, laboring until they died from exhaustion.
Searching for my lost shaker of salt
Prisoners at these camps were denied essential minerals in their diets, leading to mass malnutrition.
Some people say that there’s a woman to blame
Ilsa Koch, the “Bitch of Buchenwald†notorious for having lampshades made from the skin of inmates and light switches crafted from their thumbs.
But I know it’s nobody’s fault
The confusion of the condemned.
I don’t know the reason
I stay here all season
Nothin’ to show but this brand new tattoo
Immediately upon arriving at the camps, inmates were branded with numerical tattoos on their forearms. Many wear them to this day as a badge of honor in survival.
But it’s a real beauty
A Mexican cutie
How it got here I haven’t a clue
“Mexican cutie†is a common street name for Zyklon-B, the gas used to kill millions in the gas chambers at Auschwitz and Majdanek.
(Chorus)
I blew out my flip-flop
Refers to a 1944 uprising at Auschwitz, in which hundreds of Jewish inmates blew up the crematorium, or “flip-flop,†stopping the slaughter for days.
Stepped on a pop-top
While writing this song, Jimmy Buffett stepped on a pop-top.
Cut my heel had to cruise on back home
Though most were malnourished and badly injured, thousands of inmates were liberated by the Allies in 1945. Many returned home to find their villages destroyed, their friends and neighbors missing or dead.
But there’s booze in the blender
And soon it will render
That frozen concoction that helps me hang on
Despite the trauma of their experiences, many survivors found peace upon emigrating to the United States and discovering the margarita.