What does ‘springing a leak’ mean in the context of these two songs?

Cafe Society
1

So, in the wake of Jimmy Buffet’s death I’ve been getting clips of his songs in my YouTube feed. I watched / listened to a live recording of ‘A Pirate Looks at Forty’ he did with Sarah MacLachlan as a guest backup singer. I’m familiar with the song but hadn’t heard it in awhile, and I got to wondering about the line:

I have been drunk now for over two weeks
I passed out and I rallied and I sprung a few leaks

There’s also The Band’s song Cripple Creek:

If I spring a leak, she mends me
…
A drunkard’s dream if I ever did see one

My first thought went to bladder control issues. Peeing oneself, to put it plainly (or worse!). After all, ‘taking a leak’ is common slang for relieving oneself. So ‘Springing a leak’ for relieving oneself onto oneself?

But that doesn’t quite jibe with the Cripple Creek song: “If I spring a leak, she mends me”. Cleans the guy up, or helps change his pants, maybe. But mends? Ok, it fits the rhyme and meter of the song, but it seems to point more toward patching up a drunk who is getting minor cuts and abrasions on his stumbling misadventures— putting band-aids on their bloody boo-boos.

I actually did two minutes of internet research, and I found another opinion that, in the case of the Cripple Creek song, the woman was fixing metaphorical leaks; in other words helping him with a variety of problems he causes while drunk, so he doesn’t morally and metaphorically ‘sink’.

So what say ye, yon teeming millions? Please help fight my ignorance on this most important matter! Are the drunks incontinent, or bleeding? Or perhaps it’s a metaphorical leak? Is ‘springing a leak’ even a common phrase with a commonly understood meaning, or did the two songs just happen to use the same phrase, but mean different things?

2

Metaphorical

3

Yes, it’s a common phrase, usually referring to a boat or a pipe or container of liquid.

So it’s a metaphor, but semi-literal with reference to a drunk, from whom pee and vomit tend to “leak”.

I think it’s a metaphor for the “cleans the guy up” (of pee and vomit) meaning. To me, falling over drunk and hurting yourself don’t fit the semi-literal metaphor, because it’s not as though blood is likely to be pouring out.

4

Well, yes, I know ‘springing a leak’ is a common phrase in that context, which is pretty much entirely literal. I meant, is it a common phrase in the context of a drunk ‘springing a leak’?

But I think, as much as there is an answer, yours is probably closest- part literal, part metaphorical.

5

I am much more familiar with the Band song than the Jimmy Buffet example. I’ve always assumed that “spring a leak” was merely a nice rhyme with “Cripple Creek”, and that it conveniently had the implication that the speaker was falling apart in some way and needed support.

mmm

6

Seems especially apt that Jimmy Buffet would use nautical metaphors, seeing as how he is an icon in (among others) the boating community.

7

That makes perfect sense. I wasn’t even thinking in terms of it being a nautical metaphor, but yeah. I am thinking now that I was taking the phrase too literally, and it is really just a convenient metaphor that fits nicely into each song.

With maybe a little literal meaning added as well. I’m thinking of the line from the movie S.O.B.— “Ben, do you realize that in a matter of a few hours you have demonstrated most of your excremental bodily functions”.

8

In the boating world, and particularly the wooden boating world, “springing a leak” becomes a metaphor for the constant drip-feed of maintenance tasks on an organized assemblage of parts that desperately wants to disassemble itself into a random pile on the seafloor.

I’m thinking the overall tone is 90% metaphor, 10% convenient rhyming & meter. With maybe a touch of band-aids on boo-boos. Recalling “stepped on a pop-top”.

9

Yeah, those old pop tops could definitely cause you to spring a leak in the bloody literal sense of the meaning, if stepped on while barefoot. Those things were downright dangerous. I remember some people used to drop them into the pop can opening after popping it open, but I would never do it for fear I might accidentally swallow it while drinking :persevere:

10

“Springing a leak” means crying in those two contexts.

11

Ah, another meaning I hadn’t considered, and very possibly on the money.

12

I’ve always assumed the line in Cripple Creek is meant to mean peeing himself, I mean its a pretty common side effect of being a drunkard after all, so it makes sense. “Mends” I’d assume meaning getting him a change of trousers, etc.

13

This is what I thought of. Probably because if a friend and I are watching a movie or tv show and something sets me off she’ll look at me and say, “Are you leaking?”

14

I think “leaking” means crying and mends me is consoles me.

The lyrics are open to interpretation.

Buffet may be talking about depression. I rallied and sprang a few leaks. He was better for awhile and had a few down days with crying.

15

I don’t think Buffett is talking about crying. It feels just like what you need to do to take care of an old boat that needs constant maintenance. Partying is tough on the body.

16

That makes sense, the fact that has never occurred to me (and other people based on the replies) as an interpretation is probably something to so with the fact that I’d expect a guy in 1969 to be more comfortable admitting to being an alcoholic who habitually soils themselves, than a guy who cries occasionally :person_shrugging:

17

There is also this from the wikipedia page for Up on Cripple Creek:

that sparked the idea about a man who just drives these trucks across the whole country. I don’t remember where I sat down and finished the song

So it could mean a literal leak in terms of a flat tire on a truck.

18

Ha, a literal leak in a tire is the last interpretation I would have guessed.

19

He writes a lot about boats. . . Plus, the song in question is “A Pirate Looks at Forty” so to me it’s pretty obvious. If a pirate talks about “springing a leak” he’s talking about his ship. And it’s metaphorical.

20

I always thought it just meant having problems, like a boat or a pipe that springs a leak needs some help. In The Band song, he’s talking about how she just takes care of all of his problems.