"The Great Filling Station Hold Up" is a song written and performed by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. It was first released on his 1973 album A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean and was his first single from that album. The single reached No. 58 on the US Country chart in 1973.
The song is about two robbers holding up a filling station and the aftermath of getting caught shortly after the robbery in a honky tonk, where both robbers are drunk on beer they bought with the cash they stole.[2] Buffett got the idea to write the song after finding amusement in a newspaper article about recovered property from a holdup.[3]
Soon after the release of the single, with "Why Don't We Get Drunk" as its B-side, it was reported that it had sold over 50,000 copies just to jukebox operators, according to B.J. McElvee, country promotion manager for ABC-Dunhill Records.[4]Billboard magazine reported that only the A-side was promoted to country radio, because the word "screw" (repeatedly used in "Why Don't We Get Drunk") was not generally acceptable in country radio programming at the time; however, "Why Don't We Get Drunk" was played by some "underground" stations on FM radio.[4] "Why Don't We Get Drunk" was identified by Billboard as a "jukebox favorite" more than three years after its original release.[5][6]
