Conversational Everyman Charm
I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song (plus a few others) - Jim Croce (Blast from the Past Sunday)
My earliest experience with Jim Croce was through The Muppet Show. There was a segment in which an old muppet goes through a laboratory, becoming younger and younger as he sings “Time in a Bottle”. I can remember absorbing the melancholy yet beautiful melody, unable to tear my eyes away from this random sketch, one that really had nothing to do with the rest of The Muppet-y antics of the rest of the show. It’s a moment I think about every time I hear “Time in a Bottle” — heck, it’s something I think about any time Jim Croce comes up at all!!
I only really started listening to Croce last year. Even then, I’ve barely scratched the surface of his music. However, he’s quickly become one of my favorite artists, the kind I immediately go to when I need comfort or support. Jim Croce’s music is perfect to listen to on sunny days when you’re feeling gray inside, or even in the dead of night when you need a little color in your world. He’s there with his guitar in hand, mustache bold as ever, ready to sing a song for any mood you’re in.
One thing I particularly love about Jim Croce is the conversational tone of his lyrics. He has a way of relating to the listener that I’ve only heard with a few other songs, let alone artists. He oozes everyman charisma in a way that’s charming and attainable, generously letting you in on the secrets he spins with his words, even letting you keep the dime, in the instance of the Operator! The only example that comes to mind of a song that covers this conversational niche the same way that Croce’s music does is The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever”. However, even in that song, John Lennon sounds as if he’s speaking to an interviewer, someone who just doesn’t get what he’s talking about, despite all his explanation, leaving the listener feeling disconnected from the subject. In contrast, Jim Croce puts the listener on the same level as him, allowing for the conversation to be more meaningful. When you listen to Jim, you aren’t yourself. I like to imagine that when hearing one of his songs, the listener is placed in the role of “bartender” — listening and occasionally responding or echoing his problems, whether they be with people, love, cities, or other things that nearly everyone has a tough time with.
I must have heard “I’ll Have to Say I Love You With a Song” sometime in my life before a few days ago, I’m sure of it. But as I lay in bed the other night, unable to sleep and trying to cure my insomnia with music, I felt as though I heard an angel. Even now, listening to the song as I write this, it nearly makes me cry. I don’t know why this happens. It’s a beautiful, sweet, romantic gem of a song, the kind that should produce upside-down Molly Ringwald smiles and make everything feel warm and fuzzy. Here’s the thing though … it’s not a beautiful, sweet, romantic gem of a song. No, it’s the MOST beautiful, MOST sweet, MOST romantic GEODE of a song, one that exudes such warmness, such fuzzy-ness, that it’s impossible for the emotions it reflects to be simple. The tone of voice, that single track standing its own against dueling acoustic guitars, the angelic reverb of the backing vocals, the addition of the strings, the soft keyboard…nothing, and I mean NOTHING in the world could make this song more poignant, more beautifully simplistic and wildly perfect than this song already is. It’s the prime example of Jim Croce’s immense talent, a tangible object that emphasizes how despite his early death, his spirit and heart live on through his songs.
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