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Jim Croce - I Got A Name

Jim Croce - I Got A Name Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: I Got A Name
Released: 1973

I Got A Name Lyrics

Like the pine trees lining the winding road
I Got A Name, I got a name
Like the singing bird and the croaking toad
I got a name, I got a name
And I carry it with me like my daddy did
But I'm living the dream that he kept hid

Moving me down the highway, rolling me down the highway
Moving ahead so life won't pass me by

Like the north wind whistlin' down the sky
I got a song, I got a song
Like the whippoorwill and the baby's cry
I got a song, I got a song
And I carry it with me and I sing it loud
If it gets me nowhere, I'll go there proud

Moving me down the highway, rolling me down the highway
Moving ahead so life won't pass me by

And I'm gonna go there free

Like the fool I am and I'll always be
I got a dream, I got a dream
They can change their minds but they can't change me
I got a dream, I got a dream
Oh, I know I could share it if you'd want me to
If you're goin' my way, I'll go with you

Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway
Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by
Movin' me down the highway, rollin' me down the highway
Movin' ahead so life won't pass me by

Writer/s: FOX, CHARLES/GIMBEL, NORMAN
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

I Got A Name

This was the theme song for the 1973 movie The Last American Hero starring Jeff Bridges as a stock car racer. The movie is based on the true story of the stock car driver Junior Johnson.

This is a rare song that Croce recorded but did not write. Ingrid Croce, who was married to Jim from 1966 until his death in 1973, told us: "It was written by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox. And they were wonderful guys, really nice people. Jim had been selected to sing this song for this particular movie. He really enjoyed this opportunity, because he went into the recording studio and it was a little awkward for him not to hold his guitar - his guitar is kind of like a bar for the bartender, having that prop between him and the audience was just a real security, it made him feel very comfortable. So putting down the guitar to sing, just to sing the song in the studio, was a very unusual thing for Jim, and he thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a brand new start for him in some ways, to use his vocals in a different way. I think it's one of the most powerful songs he does on that album for sure. I loved it."

Explaining how this song was a good fit for her husband, Ingrid says: "More people think he wrote that song. His voice was so unique... the timbre in his tone and his warmth and his generosity, everything came through that voice. So when he took a song, he'd make it his own, and I think he did a great job with 'I've Got A Name.' So many people like to think of Jim with that song that I hate to tell them it isn't his." (Read more in Ingrid Croce's Songfacts interview, and at Croces.com .)

The album was produced by Terry Cashman and Tommy West, who had a hit as Cashman & West with "American City Suite." Says Cashman: "We recorded it because Jim was going to get a lot of money to record the song, and if it was released as a single, it would be the main title of a movie called The Last American Hero. So it wasn't a song that Jim wrote on the guitar with Maury [Muehleisen]. Tommy and Jimmy and Maury and myself came up with the arrangement together. It was a different kind of animal. We did that song with just the tracks for us, and then recorded Jim's voice over it, which is the way most people did records in those days. But most people think that Jim wrote that song because it sounds like the other songs, and then the production of course is a little bit more elaborate. It was different in that way, but Maury has a big guitar part and it certainly sounded like one of his records. And it became one of his most popular records. You know, a lot of people have covered that song, and it's been used in a number of other movies." (from our interview with Terry Cashman)

This was the last song Croce played before his death. He performed it as an encore at show in Natchitoches, Louisiana at Northwestern College. The crowd was small, as many folks stayed home to watch the Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match that night. Croce's plane, taking off in the dark after the concert, clipped a tree and crashed, killing all six people on board.

Quentin Tarantino used this song in his 2012 film Django Unchained. The film is set in 1858, but features some modern music, including cuts by Rick Ross and John Legend. The song was used in a scene were Django (Jamie Foxx) has been freed.

Other films that have used the song include The Ice Storm (1997) and Invincible (2006).

Lena Horne sang this in 1976 on the first season of The Muppet Show. Horne's appearance earned the show a great deal of credibility, making it easier for the show's producers to find guests willing to perform with puppets.

Jim Croce - Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Jim Croce - Bad, Bad Leroy Brown Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Life And Times
Released: 1973

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown Lyrics

Well the South side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man named Leroy Brown

Now Leroy more than trouble
You see he stand 'bout six foot four
All the downtown ladies call him "Treetop Lover"
All the men just call him "Sir"

And it's Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Leroy he a gambler
And he like his fancy clothes
And he like to wave his diamond rings
In front of everybody's nose
He got a custom Continental
He got an Eldorado too
He got a thirty two gun in his pocket for fun
He got a razor in his shoe

And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Friday 'bout a week ago
Leroy shootin' dice
And at the edge of the bar
Sat a girl named Doris
And oo that girl looked nice
Well he cast his eyes upon her
And the trouble soon began
And Leroy Brown learned a lesson
'Bout messin' with the wife of a jealous man

And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Well the two men took to fighting
And when they pulled them off the floor
Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle
With a couple of pieces gone

And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

And it's bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Writer/s: Croce, James
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Jim Croce joined the US National Guard in 1966, hoping it would keep him from getting sent to Vietnam. He married Ingrid that year, and hoped to continue his education and launch his music career. Unfortunately, Jim was sent for training less then two weeks after their wedding. As Ingrid told us, Jim had no interest in being a soldier and had the distinction of having to repeat basic training. Ingrid explains how Jim got the idea for this song: "Leroy Brown is a guy that he actually met. When he was in the service - The National Guard - this guy had gone AWOL. He was a guy that Jim kind of related to, he liked to sing with him. This guy had gone AWOL but he came back to get his paycheck, and he got caught. Jim just thought he was such a funny guy that he thought he'd include his name in the song, and it just worked. There really was a Leroy Brown, and sometimes having a name helps you to build a song around it."

Ingrid runs Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar in San Diego, where she keeps Jim's legacy alive and hears from many patrons who were touched by Jim's songs. Says Ingrid: "I have a lot of staff members that come up to me and say, 'You know what, there's a guy named Leroy Brown, he kind of looks like the part, and he's sitting at our bar right now.' I say, 'Well, I'll be glad to come over and say hi.' There's so many Leroy Browns who have come up to me and said, 'I'm sure I'm the one he was talking about.'"

When Jim Croce would introduce this song, he said there were two people he encountered in the military who inspired this song: a sergeant at Fort Jackson and a private at Fort Dix. The actual Leroy was the sergeant, but it was the private who went AWOL and returned for his paycheck.

The piano riff at the beginning was based on Bobby Darin's "Queen of the Hop."

This was Jim Croce's first #1 hit ("Time in a Bottle" was the other). It topped the charts 10 weeks before he died in a plane crash.

This is sung by a parrot in the movie Home Alone 3. Shelly Smith covered it for that film's soundtrack. (thanks, Greg - Calgary, Canada)

In 2008, producer Warren Zide (American Pie) bought the movie rights to this song. Ingrid Croce said: "We've always wanted to do a movie with one of Jim's character songs - we just want him and his memory and his music to live on. Most importantly, it sounds as if it's going to be a lot of fun. And Jim liked to have fun." (Read more in Ingrid Croce's Songfacts interview)

This wasn't the first hit from the '70s to feature a "Leroy." In Todd Rundgren's song "We Gotta Get You A Woman," the lovelorn character is named Leroy. In real life, he was Paul, but Rundgren couldn't find a good rhyme for that name.