You Don't Mess Around with Jim (Harper College 2/5/73) - Jim Croce

Uptown got it's hustlers

The bowery got it's bums

42nd street got Big Jim Walker

He's a pool-shootin' son of a gun

Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come

But he's stronger than a country horse

And when the bad folks all get together at night

You know they all call Big Jim boss

Just because

And they say

"You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger

And you don't mess around with Jim"

Well, outta South Alabama came a country boy

He said, "I'm lookin' for a man named Jim"

I am a pool-shootin' boy, my name Willie McCoy

But down home they call me, 'Slim'"

Yeah, I'm lookin' for the king of 42nd street

He drivin' a drop top Cadillac

Last week he took all my money

And it may sound funny

But I've come to get my money back

And everybody say, "Jack, don't you know?

And you don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger

And you don't mess around with Jim"

Well, a hush fell over the pool room

Jimmy come boppin' in off the street

And when the cuttin' were done

The only part that wasn't bloody

Was the soles of the big man's feet

Yeah, he were cut in in 'bout a hundred places

And he were shot in a couple more

And you better believe

They sung a different kind of story

When big Jim hit the floor

Now they say

"You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger

And you don't mess around with Slim"

Yeah, Big Jim got his hat

Find out where it's at

And it's not hustlin' people strange to you

Even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue

Yeah, you don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger

And you don't mess around with Slim