THE HIT HAMMER: Jim Croce's "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)

Jim Croce - "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"

Hit Number 1: July 21, 1973

Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks

Jim Croce was always big into music, but before he was writing and recording his own music, he spent some time in the U.S. Army, as many young men did in the late '50s and early '60s. While he was stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he met a guy at linemen school. He said the guy was there for only a week, and decided he didn't want to do it anymore and went AWOL. (Taking your own vacation) Croce said the guy was strong, so no one hardly ever told him what to do, but he made the mistake of coming back at the end of the month to get his paycheck. Croce said it was within seconds that handcuffs were placed on him, and that was the last he'd ever heard from his old friend while in the Army. The guy's name? Well, that would be Leroy Brown. Croce said while he was watching Brown being escorted away, and after hearing how the guy talked and acted, he knew someday he'd have to write a song about him. Which he did.

Croce's time of stardom was brief, as he died in a plane crash in September 1973, but he made the most of his time in the spotlight. From 1972-1973, he'd released three albums, and all three of them produced big hits. In 1972, he released the album You Don't Mess Around with Jim, with the title song reaching the top ten, peaking at #8. (It's an 8) In the song "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", we're told the story of a tough guy who leads a gang, and kicks everyone's ass in pool. But one day another guy comes in, Willie "Slim" McCoy, and he comes to get his money back from Jim who hustled it away from him the last week. When Jim enters the pool hall, McCoy ambushes him and kills him. In "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", the story is strikingly similar to "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown".

The song starts out with a fun, attention-grabbing piano riff before Croce begins to introduce Brown's character to us. He lives in the South side of Chicago, is always armed with a razor and a .32 caliber handgun, wears fancy clothes and diamond rings, and is constantly getting laid. He sounds like the biggest bad ass of them all. But one day he starts making the moves on a woman at a bar, and her jealous husband comes over and proceeds to start fighting with Brown. When it's all said and done, Brown apparently looks like "a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone." So the big tough guys get what's coming to them in the end, I guess. But there's also differences between the two songs. In "You Don't Mess Around with Jim", the song is more suspenseful, and you get a feel for who this Jim guy was all about. He sounds more intimidating than Leroy Brown. In "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", the main character sounds like a guy who thinks he's tougher than he really is, and the first time he's challenged to a fight, he gets the crap beat out of him.

"Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is also a lot more humorous. It's just Croce having fun, which was something rare for him in his songs. Croce didn't make lots of songs that I would describe as being "fun." His songs were more thought-provoking than anything else. The guy knew how to write a song. (I mean, "I've Got a Name"? That's a song. It made it to #10, and it's a 10) But "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" is a departure from songs like that. However, the story is fun to follow along, and there's no way something like this would become a hit if it took itself too seriously. Along with the piano riff, Croce proudly gloats about the mighty Leroy Brown, but he knows in the end he's going to get his ass kicked. You feel some sort of connection with Brown, even though you're only listening to Croce's words, you can picture this guy in your head. The line "Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone" confirms Croce's goals. He wants the song to be nothing but a fun time. It greatly succeeds at that.

This song also has somewhat of a special meaning to me. I've been a music fan since I was about five years old, when I started listening to '80s music on Music Choice. (For anyone that doesn't know what that is, it's about 30 or 40 channels with different music genres for cable users. I will claim for the rest of my life that that is one of the greatest inventions of all time) I gradually began to listen to more and more music. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" was one of my first favorite songs, and I listened to it on one of those old iPod shuffles when I was around 11 years old. My mom also loves the song, so I guess that's what opened the door for me to become a fan. "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" takes me back to that time. Little did I know, though, that Croce had lots of good stuff that I needed to find. He'll appear in this blog again, but unfortunately he wasn't around to see his next #1 hit.

GRADE: 8/10

JUST MISSED:

The Carpenters, for about the 1,000th time, were kept away from the top spot on the charts again. This time their hauntingly nostalgic-feeling "Yesterday Once More" peaked at #2 behind "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". It's an 8.

10 ALERT!!!:

Three Dog Night's perfectly nonsensical banger "Shambala" peaked at #3 behind "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". It washes away my troubles and my pain. It washes away my sorrows and my shame. It's a 10.

ANOTHER 10 ALERT!!!:

Seals & Crofts' glittering soft-rock sensation "Diamond Girl" peaked at #6 behind "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". It's like a precious stone. It's part of Earth that heaven has rained on. It's also a 10.