Ingrid Croce, who was married to Jim from 1966 until his death in 1973: Operator is one of my favorite songs. I think its a pretty interesting song in the way in which it was composed. Its probably like a lot of songs of Jims, but its one that I think a lot of people relate to in a whole bunch of different ways. Jim and I had gotten married in 1966, and we had been waiting for him to go in the service. He was a National Guard, which he had joined with the hope that he would not be sent over, and he would be able to continue his education and his music career. So he signed up for the National Guard, and just as soon as we decided to get married - in August of 1966, the week before our little wedding - he got a letter that said that he would be leaving within 2 weeks for his National Guard down in South or North Carolina, so he was leaving with a very heavy heart. My dad had been very ill and shortly after that passed away. And we had just waited... wanted to get married and have some time to be together after all those years of waiting. And all of the sudden here he is National Guard, where Jim is not very good with authority. And hes in the south, and they were not very good with making pasta. He was missing good food, he was missing me, he was missing life in general. Hes one of the few guys I think who went through basic training twice... he really couldnt follow the system. Hed always find things that were funny, like a handbook that he put together in dealing with the service with a whole bunch of quotes of how to deal with people in the Army. But anyway, he was standing there in the rain at a payphone. And he was listening to these stories of all these guys, the Dear John stories, that were standing in line waiting their turn in the rain with these green rain jackets over their heads - I can just picture it, all of them in line waiting for their 3-minute phone call. Most of them were getting on the phone and they were okay, but some of them were getting these Dear John letters, or phone calls. I think that was the most important aspect of the song, because it was just so desperate. You know, I only have a dime and You can keep the dime because money was very scarce and very precious, and I think if you look at the words to the song there are so many aspects of our generation that are in it. Operator, could you help me place this call? Im picturing Jim out in the rain and this long line of guys where theyre really trying to reach somebody. It was hard to get through, so you always had the operator do it for you. The Rockin Apple
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 08:15:01 +0000
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