I was beginning to think I would have to settle for a redux tonight, for every song that popped into my head was one I had already played here.  So, I pulled up a Jim Croce song I hadn’t played since 2018 and, as I typically do, went back through the comments on that post.  In the comments, our friend Keith had mentioned a couple of songs by Croce that … lo and behold … I hadn’t yet played!  This is one of them …

The story behind the song was inspired during Jim Croce’s military service, during which time he saw lines of soldiers waiting to use the outdoor phone on base, many of them calling their wives or girlfriends to see if their Dear John letter was true.  According to Jim’s wife, Ingrid …

Jim and I had gotten married in 1966, and we had been waiting for him to go in the service. He was a National Guard, which he had joined with the hope that he would not be sent over, and he would be able to continue his education and his music career. So he signed up for the National Guard, and just as soon as we decided to get married – in August of 1966, the week before our little wedding – he got a letter that said that he would be leaving within two weeks for his National Guard duty down in South or North Carolina, so he was leaving with a very heavy heart.

My dad had been very ill and shortly after that passed away. And we had just waited… wanted to get married and have some time to be together after all those years of waiting. All of the sudden here he is the National Guard, and Jim is not very good with authority. And he’s in the South, and they were not very good with making pasta. He was missing good food, he was missing me, he was missing life in general.

He’s one of the few guys I think who went through basic training twice… he really couldn’t follow the system. He’d always find things that were funny, like a handbook that he put together in dealing with the service with a whole bunch of quotes of how to deal with people in the Army.

But anyway, he was standing there in the rain at a payphone. And he was listening to these stories of all these guys, the ‘Dear John’ stories, that were standing in line waiting their turn in the rain with these green rain jackets over their heads – I can just picture it, all of them in line waiting for their 3-minute phone call. Most of them were getting on the phone and they were okay, but some of them were getting these ‘Dear John’ letters, or phone calls. I think that was the most important aspect of the song, because it was just so desperate. You know, ‘I only have a dime’ and ‘You can keep the dime’ because money was very scarce and very precious, and I think if you look at the words to the song there are so many aspects of our generation that are in it.

Jim Croce died in 1973, the year after this song was released, when the chartered plane in which he was a passenger crashed into a tree during takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Natchitoches, Louisiana. In 2000, the Martin guitar company produced 73 guitars in honor of Jim Croce. In each of these guitars, an uncirculated 1973 dime was inserted in the third fret fingerboard in honor of this song and the final line, “You can keep the dime.”

This song only charted in Canada (#11) and the U.S. (#17) at the time of its release in 1972.  I found in some of my other Jim Croce postings that he wasn’t widely known outside of North America.  Still … I like this song.

Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels)
Jim Croce

Operator, O could ya help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded
She’s living in L.A.
With my best old ex-friend, Ray
Guy, she said she knew well and sometimes hated

But isn’t that the way they say it goes?
Well, let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell ’em I’m fine
And to show
I’ve overcome the blow
I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real
But that’s not the way it feels

Operator, O could ya help me place this call?
‘Cause I can’t read the number that you just gave me
There’s something in my eyes
You know it happens every time
I think about a love that I thought would save me

But isn’t that the way they say it goes?
Well, let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell ’em I’m fine
And to show
I’ve overcome the blow
I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real
But that’s not the way it feels
No, no, no, no
That’s not the way it feels

Operator, O let’s forget about this call
There’s no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time
Ah, you’ve been so much more than kind
You can keep the dime

But isn’t that the way they say it goes?
Well, let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell ’em I’m fine
And to show
I’ve overcome the blow
I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real
But that’s not the way it feels

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Croce James J
Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels) lyrics © H&r Lastrada Music, R2m Publishing, Wingate-music Corp.