To the degree that fans think about “Lucky Man” at all (after all, it was a 1987 B-side that didn’t see an official album release for more than a decade–and even then it was buried as the very last track on Disc 3 of Tracks), we tend to fall on two sides: those who think the title is sincere and those who think it’s ironic.
Consider me on Team Sincere.
Recorded late in the Tunnel of Love recording sessions, Bruce’s songwriting had already taken a turn from the sweet (“Walk Like a Man,” “Two for the Road,” “The Honeymooners,” and “The Wish” were all recorded near the outset) to the sinister (“One Step Up” and “Tunnel of Love” were the last to be recorded at the end).
Bruce will probably never make it clear exactly what was going on between him and first wife Julianne Phillips at the time, but the darker turn in his songwriting certainly suggests that something was accelerating. The idea of a rootless, itinerant driver savoring his freedom from romantic ties must have seemed like a pretty potent escape fantasy.
“Lucky Man” has a lot in common with “Hitch Hikin’,” a song Bruce would record decades later (and another song that divides fans in their interpretations). But there’s a key difference between the two songs, besides the obvious one of their instrumentation (“Lucky Man” is lean and bass-driven; “Hitch-Hikin'” is lush and orchestral).
In “Hitch Hikin’,” the narrator truly savors the joy of life on the road, taking in and sharing every detail of his temporary connections and passing scenery; in “Lucky Man,” by contrast, our narrator seems fixated on what’s behind him rather than in front of him.
Running down the highway half-past eleven
Waitin’ for my odometer to roll straight sevens
I’m a lucky man
Let’s stop right away to admire Bruce’s artfulness. We’re only twenty seconds in, but it feels like we’re in the middle of the song. That’s because Bruce brilliantly cuts the track into a performance in progress, with an incessant bassline that instantly conveys the forward motion of a speeding car while a steady double drumbeat summons the sound of the car’s tires passing effortlessly over the road’s seams and imperfections. Although never directly stated, it’s clear that the open road is very much a metaphor for the protagonist’s life.
(Note: I’m not sure why the hero of “Lucky Man” is usually identified and discussed as a trucker–there’s nothing in the song to suggest that, and there are car references both direct (in later lyrics) and indirect (the drum beat) to suggest that he’s driving a regular car. I envision him as a travelling salesman.)
Listening to the lyrics, Bruce instantly conveys the song’s conceit in three short lines. We know our hero is driving through the night (it’s doubtful there’d be such light traffic at midday); we know he’s been at this a long time (long enough for all the odometer dials to register a 7); and we know through his choice of gambling metaphors that he’s not just passingly aware of his good fortune–he’s obsessed with it.
I went to see the gypsy the other night
She looked in my palm, looked me in the eye
And said “You’re a lucky man”
“Some folks got fortune, some got eyes of blue
What you got will always see you through
You’re a lucky man”
Fortune tellers notoriously tell their customers what they want to hear, but Bruce is telling us something else as well: the gypsy’s fortune implies that our driver does not have money or good looks, the typical things that people believe will take them far. What is that thing he’s got that he can always depend on to carry him through life? His car.
Pa went from the army to the factory to the killin’ yard
I make my living with my hands behind the wheel of this car
I’m a lucky man
There’s new information here, and new insight into our traveler. We’re given three beats of his father’s life: army, factory, and killing yard. We already know that Bruce views the first two as life-stealing–the army had long since claimed the lives of important figures in his life, and the factory loomed so large in his father’s fate that he wrote a song about it. As for the third, “killing yard” is most commonly associated with a prison–and whether the narrator’s father literally spent the rest of his life in prison or merely figuratively, the point is made.
Bruce returns to the dice-rolling metaphor next, using it to convey a cockiness that suggests an underlying relief.
Messin’ with me, man, wouldn’t be wise
Roll them dice, son, aw snake eyes
I’m a lucky man
What’s he relieved about? Let’s keep listening:
Had a girl in Calgary, I gave her up
Man, that love thing was messin’ with my luck
And I’m a lucky man
I’ll wake up tomorrow morning in another state
Kiss me now, baby, before it’s too late
If you wanna kiss a lucky man
This is the part, I think, that causes controversy among fans. There are those of us who think the narrator simply had a fear of commitment and fled town rather than brave an adult romantic relationship. In other words, this verse reveals that our hero is severely lacking in self-awareness and acting against his own best interests.
Perhaps that’s so. But some people are genuinely born to run. They prefer to experience life alone, to see as much of the world and meet as many of its people as possible, and they avoid any kind of encumbrance that would hinder them. I believe the narrator of “Lucky Man” falls into this category. He’s very self-aware–enough to have realized that the relationship he’d settled into threatened the life he loved. (The life of a rock star is not unlike the life of a travelling salesman in that regard, a comparison that is perhaps not quite coincidental.)
And so he left in an act of courage rather than cowardice. Given the timing of the song’s recording, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Bruce fantasized about a similar course of action. (Bruce was so taken with “Lucky Man” that right up until the end of the recording sessions, not only was it slated to be on the album, it held the anchor spot that would eventually be given to the song that displaced it altogether: “Tunnel of Love.”)
The final lines of the song are strikingly familiar:
I don’t miss no girl, I don’t miss no home
He travels fastest who travels alone
Bruce uses very similar words to very different ends in “Valentine’s Day,” another song from the Tunnel of Love sessions:
They say he travels fastest who travels alone
But tonight I miss my girl mister tonight I miss my home
The comparison is striking: Two very different songs featuring very different characters: one running to, and one running from. I like to imagine them passing each other on the highway in the night.
The drivers in “Lucky Man” and “Valentine’s Day” are both fortunate–they each know what they both need to fulfill them, and they’re each racing toward it. In a very real sense, these songs are mirror images of each other. Imagine if Bruce had stuck with his original album sequencing–Side Two would have been bookended by “Lucky Man” and “Valentine’s Day,” making for a very powerful album side.
As the instrumental track fades into the night, the last lyrics of “Lucky Man” linger.
He’s a lucky man, a man with the world in the palm of his hands
We sense that he does indeed have the world in front of him. He fades off into the distance, leaving us behind as he does everyone else in his life–and that’s the way he likes it.
Perhaps he’ll spend the rest of his life alone, or maybe the one he’d settle down for remains out there somewhere, someday to be met. Either way, we get the sense that he’s going to be just fine.
Especially at that moment, Bruce probably very much needed to believe that.
Lucky Man
Recorded: April 4, 1987
Released: Brilliant Disguise (single B-side, 1987), Tracks (1998)
Never performed
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