photo #8571282

Hours before Jim Croce’s plane went down, he told his tour manager he was done with music — that he’d rather pump gas back home than miss another night with his wife and son. He was 30, at the height of his fame, but already exhausted by it. Croce had been grinding himself to the bone: 300 shows in a single year, endless bus rides, tiny planes hopping from college town to college town. He was broke more often than not, missing milestones with his baby boy, Tommy. That night in Natchitoches, Louisiana, he performed “I Got a Name,” a song about carving out your place in the world. Backstage, he confided he wanted out. He’d already written Ingrid a letter: “I’m coming home. I don’t care about the money, I don’t care about being famous. I just want to be with you.” Minutes later, the chartered Beechcraft E18 clipped a pecan tree at the edge of the runway and exploded. Croce and five others were killed instantly. In his pocket: the note to Ingrid. The cruelty didn’t end there. Three days later, “I Got a Name” was released posthumously. Soon after, “Time in a Bottle” — a song he had written for his son — hit #1. The world was discovering him just as he vanished. Ingrid later said hearing his songs on the radio felt like being haunted by promises that came too late. Jim Croce’s story isn’t just about an untimely death. It’s about the unbearable irony of a man who wrote songs begging for more time — and ran out of it the very moment he chose family over fame.