There's something missing in the music industry today... and

The troubadour of the sea and sand, Jimmy Buffett, once spoke with piercing clarity: “There’s something missing in the music industry today… and it’s music. Songs you hear don’t last, it’s just product fed to you by the industry.” In this lament, he strikes at the heart of a modern emptiness, a wound hidden beneath the glitter of charts and fame. His words are not only about the industry of music, but about the greater truth of art itself: that when creation is stripped of soul, when it becomes only product, it loses its power to endure. True music must spring from the heart, or else it is like bread without nourishment—filling, but never sustaining.

In the ancient world, music was never mere entertainment. It was the hymn sung at dawn to honor the gods, the chant that steadied soldiers on the march, the lullaby that soothed a crying child. Such songs were woven with spirit, meant to last beyond a moment’s pleasure. But in Buffett’s warning, we see how modern commerce has often severed the artist from the sacred. Songs are manufactured, polished for consumption, and consumed as quickly as they are forgotten. They are like sparks in the night—bright for an instant, then gone. What is missing, as Buffett reminds us, is the soul of music, the timeless voice that lingers in memory and shapes the spirit of generations.

History offers us a mirror of this truth. Think of the great folk songs of the American frontier, sung by pioneers under endless skies. They were not created in studios nor designed for profit. They were born from hardship, longing, and hope, carrying the lives of those who sang them. Many of those songs endure even now, not because they were perfect, but because they were true. Contrast this with countless hits of modern times, crafted for quick sale, which vanish within months from memory. The difference is clear: one feeds the spirit, the other only the market.

Buffett himself lived as a man who knew the power of authenticity. His songs—simple, joyful, often playful—were not engineered for dominance on the charts. Instead, they carried the rhythm of waves, the laughter of gatherings, the bittersweet touch of nostalgia. “Margaritaville” was not just a tune; it became a way of life, a philosophy of slowing down and finding joy in small moments. Why did it endure? Because it was more than a product—it was music, born of lived experience, stitched with honesty, and offered as a gift.

The lesson is clear: art that endures must be born of authenticity, not calculation. What Buffett decries is not only the industry’s hunger for profit, but our own hunger for immediacy as listeners. We too must bear responsibility. If we consume without thought, if we choose only what is fed to us, we become participants in the forgetting. Yet if we seek out what is real, what is sung from the marrow of human life, then we nurture a culture where music is again sacred, again eternal.

For the seeker of wisdom, the action is twofold. First, create from the heart. Whatever your craft—song, word, or deed—let it be more than product. Let it be truth, even if simple, even if flawed. Second, when you receive art, choose carefully. Support what uplifts, what speaks with depth, rather than what dazzles and disappears. In this way, you become not just a consumer, but a keeper of the flame.

Buffett’s words echo across generations: music must not be lost in the industry that claims its name. Let us, then, remember what music truly is—a vessel of memory, a voice of the soul, a bridge across time. Seek it, cherish it, and when you can, create it. For only then will songs outlast their season, becoming not product, but legacy. And legacy, unlike product, endures.