Uptown got it’s hustlers, the bow’ry got its bums.
Forty-second street got big Jim Walker, he a pool shootin’ son of a gun.
Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come but he stronger than a country hoss.
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 in the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you
Don’t mess around with Jim.”
Well out-a south Alabama come a country boy.
He said, “I’m looking for a man named Jim.
I am a pool shootin’ boy, my name is Willie McCoy but down home they call me ‘Slim’.
Yeah I’m lookin’ for the king of forty-second street he drivin’ a drop-top Cadillac,
Last week he took all my money and it may sound funny,
But I come to get my money back.”
And ev’rybody say, “Jack, don’t you know that you don’t…
Tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you
Don’t mess around with Jim.”
Well a hush fell over the pool room, Jimmy come boppin’ in off the street.
And when the cuttin’ was done the only part that wasn’t bloody
Was the soles of the big man’s feet.
Yeah, he were cut in ’bout a hundred places, and he were shot in a couple more.
And you better believe they sung a diff’rent kind of story when a big Jim hit the floor.
Whoa… now they say…
“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with Slim.”
(Spoken) Yeah, Big Jim got his hat, find out where it’s at,
And not hustling people strange to you,
Even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue.
“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind,
You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger and you don’t mess around with Slim.”
1972 – Jim Croce – Album: You Don’t Mess Around with Jim