The little sticker says “Time In A Bottle” from the ABC TV Movie starring Desi Arnaz Jr. “She Lives”
ALBUMS: You Don’t Mess Around with Jim (1972).
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$
The title cut, not to be confused with his hit, Bad Bad Leroy Brown, who if you will remember is the ‘baddest man in the whole damn town’ (and we are talking Chicago here.)
These two well-done novelty-like tunes are very similar in tone and plot. But funny as they are, they don’t really reflect the bulk of his life’s work. It was a life crammed into a very short time. He was 30 when a small plane he was on crashed in Natchitoches, La., Sept. 30, 1973 upon take off. It clipped a pecan tree in darkness. He was headed for a show in Austin, Texas.
According to bio info, in no certain order, born in South Philly of Italian-American parents in 1934, married wife Ingrid, converted to Judaism, worked as a welder and contruction worker in college, attended Villanova, enlisted in Army National Guard to avoid being drafted, had to go through basic training twice due to his “authority’ problem.
He once said, the nation will be prepared, “If ever there was a war where we have to defend ourseles with mops.”
The table-turning bravado in his two ‘mess around’ songs notwithstanding, the body of Croce’s songs was bittersweet and nostalgic and tear inducing, especially when falling on the right person’s ears at the right time. OK, Croce almost made me cry here with a couple of his sad songs on this, his third album. He was a deft writer.
If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you
Tears. And then there’s this from Photographs and Memories:
Photographs and memories
All the love you gave to me
Somehow it just can’t be true
That’s all I have left of you
Gulp. And that’s not even including the song about asking his Mamma and Daddy to send him some money to Sunday Mission, Box Number 10. Or asking the operator to help place the call.
Maybe all that heartbreak was behind why he had to write lines like:
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape
You don’t spit into the wind
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don’t mess around with Jim
Jim Croce never got to see his full success.
Many of his songs were released or went big after his death. He’s one of those artists where we say (sadly) if only they had lived, what music we would have.
Well, we were lucky that we got some very good music.
P.S. (Local note) Big Jim met his match in Croce’s song from Slim, a country boy from Alabama.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.