You Don't Mess Around With Jim

Croce's debut ABC album was also his commercial breakthrough, topping the charts for five weeks, largely due to the comic, up-tempo title tune, a story song about competing pool hustlers, although Croce also reached the Top 20 with the change-of-pace ballad Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels). Just after his death, ABC issued the track Time in a Bottle, and a newly ironic message propelled it to number one. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide