I like Time in a Bottle - it has a hauntingly beautiful melody full of unusual chord changes going from minor to major and back again. Croce's death was probably the first rock star passing that really shocked me personally.
In my younger days I considered "Time In A Bottle" to be unbearably maudlin, but maturity brings the realization of mortality - in myself and in my loved ones - and I've developed a belated appreciation for the single. Musically, it's superb. What really gets to me is the poignant guitar figure that follows "you're the one I want to go through time with". It starkly conveys the feeling (and the actuality) that time has run out for the singer. It must've been heavy that Winter hearing this come on with the fresh knowledge of what had happened to Jim. I do remember seeing a report on the news, but death was so abstract at age 9. Death was for old people - it didn't happen to 30-year-olds ...
Puerile nonsense that wouldn't be out of place in a 13 year old's composition book. Still, Croce's passing was tragic and untimely, and it isn't hard to see why this was a hit directly afterward.
I didn't hear this until 1977 when Dad brought home a Croce comp that had been advertised on television. I loved the song as well as tthe rest of the album and Jim Croce became one of my favorites for the next couple of years. "Time In A Bottle" is a heartfelt song that still stands up quite well.
Posting this now because I only thought of it a couple days ago --- this will add to a topic we were discussing (when this thread was) in 1970. WRT to songs with "sock it to me" in the lyrics -- not a single -- but Big Brother and the Holding Company's "Combination of the Two" is another such song. With said lyrics sung by Janis Joplin.
WRT to Croce's passing in Sept. 1973, I lived near Philadelphia at the time and so it would have made a bigger splash there. However, I only vaguely remember that (had just started first grade at the time of his death). I don't think I connected the dots until several years later -- that the several songs I liked by him were by a person who had died in a plane crash that I vaguely remembered hearing about.
Not simply because of Mr. Croce's death, but I.I.N.M., "Time In A Bottle" had been included in some TV-movie, and there was a blurb on some pressings from this era of his You Don't Mess Around With Jim album which highlighted that appearance. CBS Pitman pressings (of which I have a variant) looked something like this, and to me was the better laid out of the three plants Columbia ran at the time: There was another Croce single put out not long after this, for the Christmas holiday that had just passed at the point "TIAB" began its run at Number One, "It Doesn't Have To Be That Way" (from Life And Times):
I can't remember if I had LIFE AND TIMES before Croce died, but I think I did. I know I had YOU DON'T MESS AROUND WITH JIM. Croce's death hit me hard, because I was 15, and he was the first artist I was a fan of that died. Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Brian Jones--I heard the names, but wasn't a fan at the time of their death. As for the song, though, I like it but don't love it. Croce has so many more that I like better. Great guitar work by Maury Muehleisen--as usual. JcS
The TV movie was She Lives about a young woman dying of cancer. It starred Desi Arnaz Jr. and Season Hubley. Aired in September of '73 and 3 months later, Time In A Bottle, the song used in the movie was #1.
Love this song, don't know where I heard it from but it's great. It's sad though too considering his untimely passing.
Really loved "Time In A Bottle" and bought the single in late 1973, although I first heard it in 1972. It was the second 45 I got by Jim after "Operator". I really thought it was tragic that he passed away so young and at the peak of his career. I remember seeing him on a talk show right before he passed away, I'm not sure which one but it may have been the Mike Douglas show (I remember the show because someone in the audience asked him what he thought of Jimmy Page's guitar playing). "Time In A Bottle" and "Photographs and Memories" are my two favorite songs by Jim Croce. I also listened recently some of his early folk recordings and they are excellent.
The passing of Jim Croce hit hard in my town - he had graduated from the same suburban high school as me and was becoming quite the local hero.
My sister bought the "Time in a Bottle" single and later (in '80s) gave it to me. It is one of the earliest #1 singles that I remember our family purchasing ---- but it was not the first one they purchased (they had purchased several in the 1968-1970 timeframe but I do not remember that far back). I do remember hearing this by way of the purchased single, so that was probably in early 1974.
Yeah. I hate it when I hear negative comments about groups like Three Dog Night. ("They didn't write their own material," etc.) Well... neither did most Motown acts (ala The Temptations, Four Tops, etc., which are good groups too) nor Linda Rondstadt (9 of her 10 top singles were covers). I don't think it really matters that much.
I'd go for Jeans On by Dan Dundas, from 1977 ( No. 17 in 1977). I've never heard it in stereo. Dancing in the Moonlight (King Harvest, 1973) & some Three Dog Night singles from 72-74 could qualify.
Over on the other Billboard thread, we are talking about the first #1 R&B single of 1974. EVERY Billboard #1 rhythm & blues hit discussion thread
Completely agree. Elvis Presley didn’t write songs. Neither did Sinatra. Nor did most vocal groups of the 1950s and early 1960s. That doesn’t mean they didn’t make great records.
IIRC, the song in question was "Nobody Told Me" which Ringo just couldn't go through after John's murder. As a result, Yoko put out the existing version with John's guide vocal on 'Milk and Honey' and it was a sizeable hit. I actually prefer the rawness of the unfinished M&H tracks to the excessive polish on the 'Double Fantasy' material
Ringo and Lennon were going to do a duet on "Life Begins at Forty." We don't know what other songs Lennon intended to give Ringo. Some suspect "Nobody Told Me" because there's a demo where Lennon says he might give the song to Ringo. But he then subsequently recorded it himself (on the first day of sessions for Double Fantasy) and there's no indication he intended his version to be a guide vocal, since the recording is in a key that was probably too high for Ringo to sing.
[/QUOTE] And of course Gram was also the subject of "My Man" by Bernie Leadon of The Eagles, who also spent some quality time as a Flying Burrito Brother
Sorry I meant 'scratch' vocal as I know I've read that John was going to go back to all the eventual M&H material and redo his vocals. I was 11 on December 8th, 1980 and still haven't gotten over it
