Song #373: "Workin' At The Car Wash Blues"--Jim Croce (1973)

It's the first of two appearances in the countdown from a man who, for an albeit way too short of a period of time in the early 1970's, was as much a part of the early soundtrack of my life as The Carpenters, whom we featured just a few days back.

I can't imagine how many more songs we would've been treated to had Croce not tragically passed in 1973 in a plane crash just after a concert in Louisiana. He was only 30 years old.

Look at this list:

--Operator
--I Got A Name
--You Don't Mess Around With Jim
--Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
--Time In A Bottle
--I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song

All of them released as singles in a period of just under two years between 1972 and 1974. Amazing.

His last single to hit the Top Ten on the Adult Contemporary chart is our song today. It was very, very hard to leave off the songs above in the Top 500, but you'll notice one song missing. It's coming one day down the road.