Remember When? Jim Croce’s Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

About the song

“Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” is an uptempo, strophic story song written by American folk rock singer Jim Croce. Released as part of his 1973 album Life and Times, the song was a No. 1 hit for him, spending two weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in July 1973. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1973.

Croce was nominated for two 1973 Grammy Awards in the Pop Male Vocalist and Record of the Year categories for “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. It was Croce’s only number-one single before his death on September 20 of that year and his final single to be released during his lifetime.

The song’s titular character is a 6-foot-4-inch (1.93 m) tall man from the South Side of Chicago whose size, attitude, and tendency to carry weapons have given him a reputation in which he is adored by women and feared by men. He is said to dress in fancy clothes and wear diamond rings, and to own a custom Lincoln Continental and a Cadillac Eldorado, implying he has a lot of money. He is also known to carry a .32 caliber handgun in his pocket and a razor in his shoe. One day in a bar he makes a pass at a pretty married woman named Doris, whose jealous husband engages Brown in a fight. Leroy loses badly, and is described as looking “like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces gone”.

The story of a widely feared man being bested in a fight is similar to that of Croce’s earlier song “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim”. According to

Billboard, it is “filled with humorous lines and a catchy arrangement.” Cash Box described it as “a delightful new single in the same musical vein as his ‘You Don’t Mess Around with Jim’ smash that started his career.” Record World called it “another story-song similar to the one that started it all for [Croce], ‘You Don’t Mess Around With Jim.'”

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Lyrics

Well the South side of Chicago
Is the baddest part of town
And if you go down there
You better just beware
Of a man named Leroy Brown

Now Leroy more than trouble
You see he stand ’bout six foot four
All the downtown ladies call him “Treetop Lover”
All the men just call him “Sir”

And it’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Now Leroy he a gambler
And he like his fancy clothes
And he like to wave his diamond rings
In front of everybody’s nose
He got a custom Continental
He got an Eldorado too
He got a thirty two gun in his pocket for fun
He got a razor in his shoe

And it’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Well Friday ’bout a week ago
Leroy shootin’ dice
And at the edge of the bar
Sat a girl named a Doris
And ooh that girl looked nice
Well he cast his eyes upon her
And the trouble soon began
And Leroy Brown he learned a lesson
‘Bout messin’ with the wife of a jealous man

And it’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Well the two men took to fighting
And when they pulled them from the floor
Leroy looked like a jigsaw puzzle
With a couple of pieces gone

And it’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog

And he’s bad, bad Leroy Brown
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog

Yeah, he was badder than old King Kong
Meaner than a junkyard dog