You Don't Mess Around With Jim in Bloomington, MN

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
also reached the Top 20 with the change-of-pace
ballad
"Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)."
Just after his death,
issued the track
"Time in a Bottle,"
and a newly ironic message propelled it to number one. ~ William Ruhlmann