On first listen, “Lucky Town” sounds like a latter-day retelling of “Hungry Heart.” Our narrator feels the need to escape the confines of his home and his life, so he starts walking.
But by the time the song is over, we realize that Bruce has turned “Hungry Heart” on its head: he’s not running from, he’s running toward.
And with that revelation about the title track for Bruce’s tenth studio album, we realize that we are listening to a very different Bruce Springsteen than we’ve ever heard before.
“Lucky Town” is a return to form for Bruce. Freed from the overly lavish production and arrangements that weighed down much of Human Touch, “Lucky Town” saunters its way over the rise. It’s also an intensely personal song not just lyrically, but musically: Bruce plays every instrument on the tracks but the drums.
It’s the second song on the album that bears its name, but the opening track “Better Days” (a brilliant song in its own right) feels unnaturally ebullient by comparison. “Lucky Town” feels more natural, Bruce sounds more at ease, and the use of a minor key melody set against hopeful lyrics is a clever twist on Bruce’s more common reverse formula.
The first verse reads like a deliberate “Hungry Heart” callback, with a hero who doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he has to go:
Well, house got too crowded, clothes got too tight
And I don’t know just where I’m going tonight
Out where the sky’s been cleared by a good hard rain
There’s somebody calling my secret name
Here’s what we don’t yet realize: the reason that house is so crowded, is because we’re in it. The house is a metaphor for Bruce’s audience; his “clothes” are his stage persona.
We can read that verse as either professional (Bruce felt pigeon-holed, stagnant, and restless, so he disbanded the E Street Band in a good hard rain and set out to find a new style), or we can read it as personal (Bruce needed more than fame and fortune in his life; he needed and found someone who saw and recognized his true self, his secret name).
Either way, he may not know where he’s going, but he’s telling us he’ll know it when he sees it.
The second verse extends the metaphor established in the first verse:
Had a coat of fine leather and snakeskin boots
But that coat always had a thread hanging loose
Well I pulled it one night and to my surprise
It led me right past your house and on over the rise
Let’s pause for a moment on that last line, because it’s significant. Bruce has just told us that his clothes, while very nice, have started to fray. (He does love those snakeskin boots, though, doesn’t he? How many songs have those turned up in?) So he pulled on that loose thread, and notice where it led him: not to his love’s house, but past it. In other words, while he needs love and family in his life, he’s not escaping to them–he’s collecting them and taking them with him.
And it’s here that we realize that “Lucky Town” isn’t a love song, but rather a re-dedication song–an affirmation to both his personal and professional lives. He’s learned hard lessons, and he’s stronger for it:
Well I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
Now the joke’s coming up through the soles of my feet
I been a long time walking on fortune’s cane
Well tonight I’m stepping lightly and feeling no pain
It’s hard not to read the first couplet of the bridge as anything but a wry commentary on his first marriage, and the second is clearly an embrace of the freedom that came with walking away from mega-stardom at the height of it.
The final verse is a celebration of self-determination and the sweet satisfaction that comes from taking the hard road:
Well here’s to your good looks baby, now here’s to my health
Here’s to the loaded places that we take ourselves
When it comes to luck, you make your own
Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I’m building me a new home
Those final lines still resonate years later, and as a personal credo you could do a lot worse. The luck we make, Bruce sings, is better than the fortune we take. It’s harder, but it’s genuinely yours.
“Lucky Town” made its official live debut at an intimate, private show for Sony insiders; the rest of us were introduced to it when Bruce played it as his first-ever performance on Saturday Night Live, more than a month before he kicked off his world tour.
If you couldn’t stay up late enough for SNL or forgot to record it, your next chance to see Bruce perform it for free was on his episode of MTV Unplugged.
“Lucky Town” has made sparing appearances since the 1992-93 touring years, and most of those were on Bruce’s solo acoustic tour in 2005. Pared down to just his guitar and harmonica, the intimacy and satisfaction expressed in the song shine through even more strongly than in the full-band version.
But the full-on E Street Band version shines too. I’ll leave you with a great recent performance, from Rome on the Wrecking Ball Tour, recorded in outstanding quality. (The full show is available for purchase as part of Bruce’s official archive series–get it here.)
Lucky Town
Recorded: September 1992-January 1992
Released: Lucky Town (1992), The Essential Bruce Springsteen (2003)
First performed: May 6, 1992 (New York City, NY)
Last performed: June 24, 2023 (Gothenburg, Sweden)
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