Jerry Reed
"You Don't Mess Around With Jim" lyrics

You Don't Mess Around With Jim

Well, now uptown's got its hustlers
The bowery's done got its bums
Fourty-second Street got big Jim Walker
He's a pool shooting son of a gun

Yeah, he's big and he's dumb
As any man can come
But he's stronger than a country horse
And when the bad folks all
Get together at night
You know they all call big Jim boss
Just because

And they say
"You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit it into the wind
You don't pull the mask
Off that old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim"

Well, outta south Alabama come a country boy
He said, "I'm looking for a man named Jim
I'm a pool shooting boy
My name is Willy McCoy
But down home they call me Slim

And I'm looking for the king
Of Fourty-second Street
He drive a drop top Cadillac
Last week he took my money
And it may sound funny
But I come to get my money back

And everybody said, "Hey, Jack
Don't you know that
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit it into the wind
You don't pull that mask
Off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim"

Well, a hush fell over that pool room
Jimmy come bopping in off the street
And when the cutting was done
The only part that wasn't bloody
Was the soles on the big man's feet

He was cut in about a hundred places
And he was shot in a couple more
And you better believe
They sung a different kind of story
When big Jim hit the floor

And now they say
"You don't tug on Superman's cape
And you don't spit it into the wind
You don't pull the mask
Off that old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Slim

Yeah, you got it, brother
That big Jim he done got
What left of his hat
And put it on what's left of his head
And he hit the street

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit it into the wind
You don't pull the mask
Off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with Slim

Not if you got a lick of sense you don't
You see what that little skinny fellow did to Jim
He beat his brains out
I mean mostly outta his head
Say where'd Jim go anyway
Ah, Jim left and went
And got in his drop top Cadillac
Shoot
Skinny done dunked his mop"

Authors: Jim Croce