My Top Five: Jim Croce

So, I’ve come to the realization that as much as I love jazz music, I listen to a lot more folk, country, and singer-songwriter-y stuff. Hence why we’re now traveling into the beautifully painful universe of Jim Croce. I grew up with “Time in a Bottle” and “I Got A Name”, but it wasn’t until two or three years ago that I really got into Croce’s music. I am both proud and slightly embarrassed to admit that I think I’ve listened to every single Jim Croce Song… Perks of being a music geek over a musician who, in the grand scheme of things, had a pretty short career. These won’t be in order, but here are my top five Jim Croce songs!

• Hey Tomorrow (Album: You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, 1972)

Don’t get me wrong, I can groove to “Speedball Tucker” and “Rapid Roy” like the best of them, but my heart truly lies with Jim Croce’s more sentimental stuff. “Hey Tomorrow” has been my “sad day” anthem for a while now. “Hey Tomorrow, where are you going, do you have some room for me?” and “I’ll have a new day if she’ll have me” have been perfect words for those nights when I’m just ready for the day to be over. I also love that Croce uses a lot of feminine pronouns in very intentional ways. Tomorrow is female, and Croce seems to get that.

• Operator (Album: (You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, 1972)

Oh how badly I wish I could play this one on the guitar… Jim Croce sings to my hopeless romantic heart, and “Operator” is a stellar example of that. I love the age-old question of “what would you do if you weren’t afraid?” My response? “I’d tell that person I love them.” Croce displays my answer in this song, especially with the failure to actually put the call through. I appreciate the intimacy he creates between the narrator of the song and the operator. I love it.

• Time In A Bottle (Album: You Don’t Mess Around WIth Jim, 1972)

The story behind this song makes my heart melt. Jim Croce wrote this song at his kitchen table, and for his wife, after finding out she was pregnant with their first child. I’ve seen this song used as a first dance at weddings, but for me it signifies the power of our lives. “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do once you find them.” In many ways, that’s how I feel about various elements of my life. How could I have gone over twenty-one years without exploring or doing this? I ask myself all the time. I hope and pray that one day I get to look into someone’s eyes and say “I’ve looked around enough to know that you’re the one I want to go through time with”. In the same song that talks about going through time, Croce writes of saving every day of eternity and spending it with one person. I can only daydream of a love that genuine.

• Age (Album: Jim & Ingrid Croce, 1969)

Yeah this one is just sad. Honestly, I think we all need a sad song every once in a while. This song talks about the aging process in a different way, in both the sad and painfully hopeful way. It talks about how “I’ve turned inside out and around about and back again, and found myself right where back where I started again.” I’ve faced that cycle of working, and working, and working only to feel like you’ve gone nowhere. Putting it to some guitar chords sure validated my emotions. But I also love the lyric, “And now I’m in my second circle and I’m headed for the top, learned a lot of things along the way. I’ll be careful while I’m climbing cause it hurts a lot to drop. When you’re down, nobody gives a damn anyway.” There’s a duality there, the simultaneous hope when you start climbing again and the perpetual “F-you” to the world that can seem like it just doesn’t care about you. I may be young, but I love age.

• I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song (Album: I Got A Name, 1973)

Remember that trope I talked about earlier? The saying “I love you” without fear? Yeah it strikes another chord (both musical and mental) in this song. There are so many different ways to love, so many different ways to say “I love you”, and music is perhaps the most significant. This song is about the late-night, last-minute decision to just profess that love. It’s absolutely something I would do, but also something I admittedly dream about being the recipient of. Love is kinda cool, and Croce knew exactly how to put that into lyrics. “Every time the time was right all the words just came out wrong. So I’ll have to say I love you in a song”. The first sentence stabbed me, the second twisted the knife. Oh to be a hopeless (and really single) romantic…

Honorable Mentions: