Jim Croce possessed a unique songwriting gift. He had the ability to sound plainspoken and down-to-earth in a way that almost masked the immense craft on display. His songs were lived-in and relatable, which helped him rack up a streak of hits in the early ’70s.
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“It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way” arrived on his smash 1973 album Life and Times. Although not originally released as a single, it ended up being one of his most enduring hits anyway, in part because it’s often rehashed around the holiday seasons.
A Christmas-Set Classic
Jim Croce’s story is as unlikely as it is tragic. Very few artists who kicked around for as long as he initially did without gaining any kind of commercial success ever belatedly make it big. But Croce was persistent, caught a few breaks, and eventually nabbed a massive audience.
His breakthrough 1972 album, You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, was the third full-length he’d released. The other two (one of which he recorded in tandem with his wife Ingrid) sank without a trace in the ’60s. And even You Don’t Mess Around With Jim was recorded on a shoestring budget and was first turned down by practically everyone who heard it.
Once the title song became a Top-10 hit, Croce no longer had to worry about obscurity. In 1973, his album Life and Times included the song “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown,” which gave him his first No. 1 single. Fate interrupted Croce’s glory ride in the worst possible way, however: He died in a plane crash in September of that same year.
“It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way” first appeared on Life and Times as the closing track on the record. Croce initially made it a B-side. After his death, the song was released in December 1973, calculated to cash in on the Christmas holiday playing into the narrative.
Exploring the Lyrics to “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way”
“It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way” starts off as you might expect a typical Christmas song to do, setting the stage with your typical seasonal sights: Snowy nights and Christmas lights / Icy window panes. But then the true plot is revealed: Makes me wish that we could be / Together again, Croce dejectedly sings.
Suddenly, the sights and sounds are all tinged with melancholy: And the Christmas carols sound like blues / But the choir is not to blame. Croce shows off a penchant for vivid descriptions that stray from the cliche, such as when he mentions Tinseled afternoons, or how the sidewalk band can’t quite keep in tune.
Where Croce truly excels is in his way of cutting through typical songwriting tropes and getting to the heart of the matter. In this case, it’s a guy trying to reveal his true feelings to someone who might have stopped listening: There walks a lonely man / And if I told you who he is / Well, I think you’d understand.
In the chorus, he makes a common-sense plea to reverse the sequence of events that have left them estranged. But it doesn’t have to be that way, he implores. And he’s willing to make the first move towards a reunion: I’ll be dropping by today / ‘Cause we could easily get it together tonight / It’s only right.
Jim Croce’s “It Doesn’t Have To Be That Way” is one of those songs that sort of surprises you when you hear it around the holidays. Perhaps it’s because the timing of the song is one of the least important things about it. Instead, what matters is this guy’s attempts to reconcile a love that seems to have evaporated for no good reason.
Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
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