Lost Gem: "New York's Not My Home" - Jim Croce (1972)

"And I had begun to doubt all the things that were me."
--> Jim Croce <--

Jim Croce's breakout album was "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" (1972)...with the uptempo title track being his radio debut single. Three tracks from this album would become radio staples.

The next year, Croce's follow-up record..."Life and Times" (1973) quickly went gold with another three singles taking over the airwaves.

He had just finished recording the album..."I Got A Name"...that same year with plans of a holiday release. Barely a week out of the studio, after doing a show in Louisiana, Jim and longtime partner Maury Muehleisen would tragically be involved in a fatal plane crash.

Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen

Made no difference whether you were a bruising truck driver or a scared young boy with a broken heart.  Redneck or longhair...it didn't matter.

He was one of us and he was singing our life.

LOST GEM:--> "New York's Not My Home"...is really about anyplace where we feel odd man out or last man picked. That place where the weight of all strange places and faces almost buries us.

Have you heard this gem?


Well things were spinnin' round me
And all my thoughts were cloudy.
And I had begun to doubt
all the things that were me.
Been in so many places.
You know I've run so many races.
And looked into the empty faces
of the people of the night
And something is just not right.

'Cause I know that
I gotta get out of here.
I'm so alone.
Don't you know that
I gotta get out of here.
'Cause New York's not my home.

Though all the streets are crowded
There's somethin' strange about it.
I lived there bout a year
and I never once felt at home.
I thought I'd make the big time
I learned a lot of lessons awful quick
And now I'm tellin' you
that they were not the nice kind.
And it's been so long since
I have felt fine.

Good stuff!

Casey Chambers
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