"Operator" was a big hit for Jim Croce back in 1971 when I was first learning to play the guitar. It was on an album entitled "You Don't Mess Around With Jim" which included the title cut, "Time In A Bottle", "New York's Not My Home", "Photographs and Memories", and "Rapid Roy". I must have listened to different songs off of that album a thousand times. I eventually got to where I could fingerpick four songs pretty much note for note the way Croce did. Listening to him play and copying his style did more to advance my fingerstyle playing than anything else.

The song is in the key of G using the chords Am, Bm, C, D, D7, Em, and G. Croce uses a repeating pattern of P, I, MA or thumb, index, and a pinch of the middle and ring fingers. The thumb plays a combination of bass line and countermelody to the other guitar parts. The second guitar, played by Maury Muehleisen, provides a blues and folk based accompaniment that gave Croce's songs a distinctive sound. His part is excluded from this lesson since it used a pick rather than a fingerstyle approach.