By the end of 1973, most Americans simply needed a break. The country had finally pulled out of the devastating Vietnam War in January. Nixon had been elected for a second term, but his vice-president, Spiro Agnew, would resign in October. Nixon followed suit in August 1974, swallowed by the Watergate scandal.
RELATED: March 1973: Jim Croce Releases "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown"
So it was no surprise when 1973 ended with Jim Croce's wistful ballad inspired by the moment his wife told him she was pregnant with their first child as the most popular song in the country: "Time in a Bottle." The tune was taken from Croce's 1972 LP, You Don't Mess Around with Jim, where it lived as a deep album cut.
The moment that elevated "Time in a Bottle" to headline status: the song being used in September 1973 made-for-TV tearjerker, She Lives! The film, about a young couple dealing with the news that the woman is battling Hodgkin's Disease, ends on a decidedly happy note. Croce's song played over the movie's famous final scene. The album itself even makes a cameo appearance. Watch the scene below.
She Lives! aired on ABC the night of September 12, 1973. On September 13, ABC affiliates across the country were deluged with callers looking for the source of the movie's last song. Record stores sold out of whatever copies of You Don't Mess Around with Jim they had on hand, with orders pouring into the label for an additional 50,000 copies. ABC Records immediately reissued the track as a single.
A real-life drama compounded the tune's popularity when Croce was tragically killed in a plane crash on September 20, 1973. The singer had just finished a show in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and was en route to another gig in Sherman, Texas. Croce was just 30 years old.
Altogether, it shot "Time in a Bottle" straight to the #1 spot on the Hot 100 for the week of December 29, 1973, making it the last #1 song of the year. It held the primary position into 1974, finally dethroned on January 12, 1974, when America decided it was time to have some fun again. The song that took Croce's place at the top: Steve Miller Band's "The Joker."
- Log in to post comments
