Something for Thursday (Conversation songs, 1)

I’m going to start something new here: a series within a series! For the next dozen weeks (or more!), Something for Thursday will be devoted to songs with a specific twist: the lyrics are one side of a conversation. The singer is talking to someone, and we only hear what the singer is saying and thus have to infer the other side of the conversation.

I’ve always liked this approach to song lyrics, and it’s a much more common device than you might think. I sent the question out into the Twitterverse a bit ago, and I got a lot of replies, many of which are songs I haven’t even heard before! So that’s exciting: a bunch of these are new to me, which is part of the appeal, after all.

This first one is a song I’ve known for years. I don’t recall when I first heard it, but I think it was sometime when I was in college. Jim Croce was a brilliant songwriter and he was one of those songwriters whose writing skills were matched to his own voice, if that makes sense. Singer-songwriters always write for themselves, but a few of them own their own material so completely that it’s hard to imagine anyone else touching their songs. In this one, Croce is talking to a telephone operator as he tries to call his ex-girlfriend, but he doesn’t know the number. I imagine the operator is being calm and professional as they deal with this sad guy who is calling, late at night, maybe on a rainy night from a payphone outside a bar.