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You Dont Mess Around Tab

by Jim Croce


This is a very simple song, most beginners should be able to play this no problem.


Uptown got it's hustlers

The bowery got it's bums

42nd Street got Big Jim Walker

He's 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 into the wind
                                
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
                              
And you don't mess around with Jim


           
Well outta south Alabama came a country boy

He say I'm lookin' for a man named Jim
      
I am a pool-shootin' boy

My name Willie McCoy
         
But down home they call me Slim
         
Yeah I'm lookin' for the king of 42nd Street
             
He drivin' a drop top Cadillac
         
After he took all my money

And it may sound funny
                          
But I came to get my money back

And everybody say Jack don't you know


                               
And you don't tug on Superman's cape
                       
You don't spit into 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' were done

The only part that wasn't bloody
        
Was the soles of the big man's feet
             
Yeah he were cut in in bout a hundred places
            
And he were shot in a couple more
        
And you better believe

They sung a different kind of story
                    
When big Jim hit the floor now they say


                           
You don't tug on Superman's cape
                       
You don't spit into 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 it's not hustlin' people strange to you

Even if you do got a two-piece custom-made pool cue

                                
Yeah you don't tug on Superman's cape
                       
You don't spit into the wind
               
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
                              
And you don't mess around with Slim