Jim Croce - “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)”
from You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
Robert Christgau once opined that “the secret flaw of the archetypal singer-songwriter might be songwriting,” and if you listen to enough singer-songwriters, it’s hard to disagree with him. Unless you’re talking about Jim Croce, who had a real gift for storytelling in music.
Operator, could you help me place this call?
‘Cause I can’t read the number that you just gave me
There’s something in my eyes, you know it happens every time
I think about the love that I thought would save meBut isn’t that the way they say it goes?
But let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell them I’m fine and to showI’ve overcome the blow
I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words
Could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real
But that’s not the way it feels
Previously: I Got a Name / You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
Jim Croce - “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”
from You Don’t Mess Around with Jim
I love this song, but I fail to understand why certain television networks continue to use it as a “clever” way to refer to a baseball player named Jim. NESN used this song over a Jim Rice montage in 2007 or 2008, and I found it — and NESN’s poor choices in music generally (Chicago’s “Old Days” for Bobby Doerr?) — rather hilarious.
The song is about a pool hustler named Jim Walker in New York City. A guy he wronged once, Willie McCoy, nicknamed Slim, shows up one day from Alabama to exact revenge. They meet in the pool room one day and Slim gets his revenge by killing Jim (or at least severely maiming him — Croce never specifies what Jim’s exact fate is), leading Jim’s entourage to become Slim’s entourage.
The reason they use it is because of the chorus, which is brilliant:
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
But they fail to remember that Jim dies in the third verse. It’s a story, people. There’s already an ending. Stop trying to ruin it.
