The Best Jim Croce Lyrics, Part 2

, Bad Leroy Brown". This was Croce's first number one song and another example of someone who runs into someone tougher than himself. "Leroy" was a real person whom Croce said he had met at either Fort Jackson, South Carolina or For Dix, New Jersey, depending on the version of the story. Croce and Leroy were in lineman (i.e. telephone) school but Leroy only stayed a week, leaving AWOL super lyrics to go home and returning only to get his paycheck. The military caught him, arrested him and led him away in handcuffs. And, yes, Croce really knew some "junkyard dogs". It seems that Croce was driving extremely cheap cars that needed parts. So he would make the rounds of junkyards looking Jim Croce managed to write a batch of wonderful songs before his premature death. Not many folks wrote songs like he did. His lyrical style could be clever, funny, and touching (sometimes all of them at once). As one who knew his lyrics by heart let me offer you my suggestions as to what were his best lyrics from the middle of his career:

 

1. "Roller Derby Queen". Play this song the next time you're in a bad mood. I dare you not to smile while you do it. This rollicking tune was based on a woman Croce met during a gig at a country and western bar. After a few drinks she revealed that she was in the roller derby. Croce just embellished it a bit but the results would set anybody to chuckling. Sample lyric: "She might be nasty. She might be fat. But I never met a person who would tell her that."

 

2. "Dreamin' Again". A soft, gentle ballad that's pure Croce. This was another recurring theme for him, that of a lover who has been lost that he's somehow trying to make amends with. In this example she's in his dreams, telling him that she wants to return, only to have wakefulness steal his hope from him. Sample lyric: And I dreamed we were lovers in the lemon scented rain."

 

3. "Badfor them. Each junkyard had its own dog and they were mean enough that they had to be tied down in some fashion to give people the opportunity to escape. Sample lyric: "Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone."

 

4. "Lover's Cross". Few love songs were as brutally honest as this one. One of the breakthroughs for Croce as a songwriter is when he decided to be totally honest in his lyrics. You can hear it on display here. The girl he's involved with wants so much more from their relationship than Croce can reasonably deliver that he feels like he's being martyred. But Croce can't fit the role, so it's Goodbye. Sample lyric: "So I'll hope that you can find another who can take what I could not. He'll have to be a super guy or maybe a super god."

 

Q: How do you replace a guy like that? A: You don't. In the end we should be grateful that Croce had the chance to make as many albums as he did before Fate stole him from us. As Horatio said of Hamlet, "May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest".

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