♫ Time In A Bottle ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

Last night I played “Photograhps and Memories” by Jim Croce and tonight my mind still seems to be craving a bit more Jim Croce, so … I hope you don’t mind one more by a man of great talent who left us a legacy of music when he died much too young.

Jim Croce wrote this song the night that he found out his wife, Ingrid, was pregnant. The couple had been married for five years, and Ingrid found out she was pregnant when she went to a fertility specialist. She recalls a mix of terror and delight in Jim’s reaction when she told him the news. The child was a boy named Adrian, who grew up to become the singer-songwriter A.J. Croce.

Croce wrote the lyrics after his wife Ingrid told him she was pregnant, in December 1970. It appeared on his 1972 ABC debut album You Don’t Mess Around with Jim. ABC originally did not intend to release the song as a single; but when Croce was killed in a plane crash in September 1973, the song’s lyrics, dealing with mortality and the wish to have more time, had additional resonance.

On September 30, 1973 a plane carrying Croce and five other people crashed upon takeoff as he was leaving one college venue to another 70 miles away. No one survived the accident, and among those killed was Maury Muehleisen, who played guitar on Croce’s albums.

The song, released as a single in December 1973, hit the #1 spot just 14 weeks after Croce’s death.

Time in a Bottle
Jim Croce

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day
‘Til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure and then,
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory
Of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them
I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go
Through time with

Songwriters: Jim Croce
Time in a Bottle lyrics © BMG Rights Management

27 thoughts on “♫ Time In A Bottle ♫ (Redux)”

  4. Jill, yet another great song by Jim Croce. I sang both to my kids when I rocked them to sleep, as well as others. The guitar playing matches the words and tune in excellence. Keith

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    • I can only say that I hope you have a much better singing voice than I have! My kids used to bring me food or my cigarettes to get me to stop singing! I’m glad you enjoyed this one … I rather thought/hoped you would.

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