#314) "One Less Set of Footsteps" by Jim Croce - Last week I mentioned that nearly all of the songs Jim Croce recorded in his lamentably short career were "poignant songs of love and longing", but that assertion can really be distilled down to one word:
poignant. And not just his slow ballads, but the upbeat tunes as well. His songwriting style had a way of wringing a certain populist exasperation, a pensiveness that never becomes too emotional (and is all the more potent), right out of the air, and "One Less Set of Footsteps" is no exception. It's a break-up song, but takes a different tack: less accusatory fingers pointing out of a deep pool of devastating sorrow and resentment, more the long eye roll into that good night, fueled as much by relief as grief.
"Salty," the kids might say today. ;-)
"You've been talking in silence, well if it's silence you adore..."
#315) "Working at the Carwash Blues" by Jim Croce - Once again, a deceptively simple song that speaks directly to the way we all see ourselves; a recognition of the wasted talent each of us is sure we are, stuck in our unchallenging, dead-end jobs/careers/lives. I have found myself "walking home in soggy old shoes" on more than one occasion through time. And again, Croce spins the song with more poignance - a kind of winsome humor - than anything.
"You know a man of my ability, he should be smoking on a big cigar..."
