Jimmy Buffett has written plenty of good time party songs, but my favorites are the sad ones. He has a way with a melancholy ballad, and often finds a way to give even upbeat material a strain of sorrow.
‘He Went to Paris’ is a highlight of Buffett’s 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, a record that leans more to the country side of his genre spectrum. It’s about the life of musician/artist Eddie Balchowsky, a war veteran who also shows up in songs by several other artists.
The song’s final lines take on a new poignancy in light of Buffett’s passing: “Some of it’s magic and some of it’s tragic, but I had a good life all the way.”
Looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
He was impressive
Young and aggressive
Saving the world on his own
Warm summer breezes
And french wines and cheeses
Put his ambitions at bay
Summers and winters
Scattered like splinters
And four or five years slipped away
He went to England
Played the piano
And married an actress named Kim
They had a fine life
She was a good wife
And bore him a young son named Jim
And all of the answers
To all of the questions
Locked in his attic one day
He liked the quiet
Clean country living
And twenty more years slipped away
Well, the war took his baby
Bombs killed his lady
And left him with only one eye
His body was battered
His whole world was shattered
And all he could do was just cry
While the tears were a’ fallin’
He was recallin’
The answers he never found
So he hopped on a freighter
Skidded the ocean
And left England without a sound
Now he lives in the islands
Fishes the pylons
And drinks his green label each day
He’s writing his memoirs
And losing his hearing
But he don’t care what most people say
“Through eighty six years
Of perpetual motion,”
If he likes you, he’ll smile and he’ll say
“Jim, some of it’s magic
And some of it’s tragic
But I had a good life all the way”
He went to Paris
Looking for answers
To questions that bothered him so
Meet Me In Montauk 
A beautiful song with a poignant ending, though I’ve never heard of the musician/artist this song (and apparently songs by several other artists?) is about.
This is one of my favorite Buffet songs. He was a masterful songwriter.