I Got A Name — Jim Croce
Whenever I need to steel myself a bit to take on what life’s about to throw at me, I hum Jim Croce’s “I Got A Name” to myself under my breath. This tale of quiet determination…to keep on going no matter what…always gives me a shot of motivation when I need it.
Jim Croce was a master songwriter with a gift for sweet and tender songs. On the surface, they appeared to be very simple songs. They could all be performed with just two vocals and two guitars.
But they carried an emotional punch which far outweighed their apparent simplicity — “Time In A Bottle”, “I’ll Have To Say I Love You In A Song” and “Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)”, for example, pull at the heartstrings in a way very few other songs do.
Unusually, however, “I Got A Name” wasn’t one of Jim Croce’s songs. It was written by Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel, on music and lyrics respectively. Today that songwriting due is probably better known for the many TV theme tunes they composed together, including the themes for Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley. They also have the writing credit for “Killing Me Softly” for Roberta Flack amongst their other successes.
The neat trick Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel pulled off, however, was that “I Got A Name” could easily have been written by Jim Croce…except it wasn’t. It slipped into his repertoire so naturally that…
