Cover Me: Lucky Day

Bruce’s connection with Alejandro Escovedo goes back much farther than most fans realize. The two singer-songwriters didn’t meet until 2008, and Escovedo’s first solo album was only in 1992.

But on an early spring day on the Tunnel of Love Tour in 1988, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band covered a song by Rank and File, one of Alejandro’s earliest bands.

“Lucky Day” wasn’t written by Escovedo (he co-wrote only one song on the album), but his guitar and vocals are present throughout the track and the rest of the band’s 1983 debut album, Sundown.

Neither the album nor the band ever made it big, but they garnered some serious critical buzz and caught Bruce’s attention.

The original track is dreamy and summer-ish, and in their fleeting rehearsal take, Bruce and the band did their best to honor it with an arrangement that positively shimmers.

In those pre-prompter days, Bruce didn’t have lyrics on demand, so much of what we hear is bluffed. Still, the track had obviously made an impression on him.

Bruce has never played “Lucky Day” in concert, and as far as we know he never even soundchecked it again. But years later, he would form a friendship with one of the artists on the track that would lead to several on-stage and on-disc collaborations.

Lucky Day
First performed: March 23, 1988 (Atlanta, GA – soundcheck only)
Last performed: March 23, 1988 (Atlanta, GA – soundcheck only)