You Don't Mess Around With Jim

(album: What Mattered Most - 1995)

Uptown got its hustlers, the bow'ry got its bums
Forty second street got big jim walker
He's a pool shooting son of a gun
Yeah he's big & dumb as a man can come
But he's 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 out of south alabama came a country boy
He said "I'm looking for a man named jim
I'm a pool shhoting boy, my name is willie mccoy
But down home they call me slim
Yeah I'm looking for the king of forty second street
He's driving a drop top cadillac
Last week he took all my money & it may sound funny
But I've come to get my money back"
And everybody say "jack

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 room
Jimmy came bopping in off the street
And when the cuttin was done the only part that wasn't bloody
Was the soles of the big man's feet
Yeah, he were cut in 'bout a hundred places
And he were shot in a couple more
And you better believe they sung a diff'rent kind of story
When big jim hit the floor. oh 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 jim

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"

Yeah, big jim got his hat, find out where it's at
And not hustling people strange to you
Even if you do got a two-piece custom made pool cue