Month: October 2023

She’s got the moon in her eye

Posted on by brucehhackett

There’s a full moon this weekend (it’s called the “hunters moon” this time of year), and Halloween is on Tuesday. It’s the perfect time to explore the many ways we are entranced, romanced, spooked, comforted and otherwise affected by the lunar orb. Consider what young George Bailey says to his sweetheart Mary in an early scene from the 1946 film “It’s a Wonderful Life”:

“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary….”

Songwriters have been fascinated by the moon for more than a century, ranging from the 1909 chestnut “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” to Pink Floyd’s 1973 concept album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” Popular music has produced many hundreds of songs, albums, musicals and even operas that pay homage to the magnetic pull of the celestial body that orbits Planet Earth.

Because this blog focuses on music of the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, I was able to narrow down the list of available songs about the moon to those decades. Even so, research showed upwards of 80 titles that include the word, and I whittled that list down to 15 selections to feature here, plus another 25 honorable mentions, and yet another 10 that use “moonlight” or some other variation. It’s a tough job, I tell ya, but someone’s gotta do it!

There’s a Spotify playlist at the end so you can listen to these tunes if you like.

**************************

“Song About the Moon,” Paul Simon, 1983

If you’re searching for songs about the moon, it doesn’t get more basic than this one from Simon’s overlooked 1983 LP “Hearts and Bones.” Simon was suffering from a writer’s block in the early ’80s, and through therapy, he stumbled on a solution. Instead of intellectualizing, he returned to simple themes and imagery, which can sometimes be more potent: “If you want to write a song about the moon, /Walk along the craters of the afternoon, /When the shadows are deep and the light is alien, /And gravity leaps like a knife off the pavement, /And you want to write a song about the moon, /You want to write a spiritual tune, /Then… presto! /A song about the moon…”

“Man on the Moon,” R.E.M., 1992

The music for this track from 1992’s successful “Automatic For the People” album was written and first performed without lyrics and vocals, and singer Michael Stipe thought it should be recorded as an instrumental. But he was persuaded to come up with lyrics, and decided to focus on conspiracy theories and whether comic performance artist Andy Kaufman had faked his own death. As bassist Mike Mills put it, “Did the moon landing really happen? Is Elvis really dead? Kaufman was something of a put-on, the perfect guy to tie this stuff together.” The song reached #30 on US charts: “If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon, /If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool…”

“Blue Moon,” Billie Holiday, 1952

Mel Tormé, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, The Marcels, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke, The Platters, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Rod Stewart… Just about everyone has taken a stab at this standard ballad from 1934, written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. It actually went through three earlier sets of lyrics before they settled on these about how the moon exposed the narrator’s loneliness and then his joy when he found someone to love. The doo-wop arrangement by The Marcels in 1961 was the most commercially successful, but I’ve always been partial to the great Billie Holiday’s poignant rendition: “Then there suddenly appeared before me the only one my arms will ever hold, /I heard somebody whisper ‘please adore me,’ and when I looked, the moon had turned to gold, /Blue moon, now I’m no longer alone…”

“Drunk on the Moon,” Tom Waits, 1974

Both of Waits’s first two LPs — 1973’s “Closing Time” and 1974’s “The Heart of Saturday Night” — reflected his interest in nightlife, unrequited romance and the underbelly of society. The songs on “Closing Time” were perhaps more folk-oriented and melodic, but thanks to the arrival of jazz-oriented producer Bones Howe for the second album (and the third, “Nighthawks at the Diner”), his music took on a looser, jazzier feel that drew praise from critics, even though it didn’t sell all that well. This track in particular has always been a favorite: “And I’m blinded by the neon, /Don’t try and change my tune, ‘Cause I thought I heard a saxophone, /I’m drunk on the moon…”

“Walking on the Moon,” The Police, 1979

Sting, who wrote nearly every song in The Police’s five-album catalog, recalls two memories of this song’s origin. “I was drunk one night in Munich in a hotel room, and thought of the melody line as I sang ‘Walking ’round the room,'” he said. “But in the morning, it seemed like a stupid line, so I put it aside. Weeks later, I was remembering my first girlfriend and how I felt that being in love was like being relieved of gravity, like walking on the moon.” As a single from the band’s second LP “Regatta de Blanc,” it reached #1 in their native UK but didn’t even chart in the US. “Walking back from your house, walking on the moon, feet they hardly touch the ground, walking on the moon…”

“Fly Me to the Moon,” Frank Sinatra, 1965

I grew up in a household where the music of Sinatra was in heavy rotation on my dad’s “hi-fi.” This song in particular always appealed to me — not only the delightful music but the lyrics that equated true love with going to the moon. Written in 1954 with the title “In Other Words,” it was recorded by many dozens of singers from Peggy Lee and Eydie Gormé to Nancy Wilson and Connie Francis. Sinatra recorded it with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1964 using a swing arrangement by Quincy Jones, and that became the definitive version: “Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, /Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars, /In other words, hold my hand, /In other words, baby, kiss me…”

“Once in a Blue Moon,” Van Morrison, 2003

The brilliantly prolific Van the Man is responsible for “Moondance,” one of the most beloved romantic songs about the moon. But not only does it miss the cut because I’m choosing to be rigid about using songs with only the word moon, but I was eager to instead include this much more recent Morrison track that makes use of the phrase “once in a blue moon.” It’s a lively Irish number that hails from one of his best albums of the past 25 years, his 2003 LP “What’s Wrong With this Picture?” “When the wind is blowing all around the fence, /I get that happy feeling, things start making sense, /All just feels so lucky that you just can’t go wrong, /Once in a blue moon, someone like you comes along…”

“Bad Moon Rising,” Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969

John Fogerty had been reading news accounts of how tornados had destroyed farm crops across several states and was inspired to write what became one of Creedence’s most popular tunes. “The words were all full of warning about terrible weather and death and destruction, so I decided it needed the dichotomy of an upbeat, happy melody to balance it out,” he said. The track reached #2 on US pop charts (#1 in the UK) in the summer of 1969, and appeared in a pivotal scene in the 1981 horror comedy “An American Werewolf in London” just before the protagonist transforms into a werewolf: “I hear hurricanes a-blowing, I know the end is coming soon, /I fear rivers overflowing, I hear the voice of rage and ruin, /Don’t go around tonight, well, it’s bound to take your life, /There’s a bad moon on the rise…”

“Half Moon,” Janis Joplin, 1971

In 1970, Johanna Hall was a writer for The Village Voice, assigned to interview Janis Joplin for an article. Johanna’s husband, John Hall, was a struggling musician (who would later become frontman for the soft rock band Orleans). Joplin hit it off with Johanna and invited the couple to write a song for her next album. The married couple collaborated on “Half Moon,” inspired by a Hendrix guitar riff and an interest in astrology, and Joplin loved it, recording a full-throated demo of it with her Full-Tilt Boogie Band. She died before recording an official take, but the demo was good enough for release, so it appeared on her posthumous “Pearl” album, and as the B-side of her single “Me and Bobby McGee.” Hall later recorded it for the debut Orleans album as well.

“Moon Over Bourbon Street,” Sting, 1985

On his first solo album, “The Dream of the Blue Turtles,” Sting took his music in a jazz-oriented direction, bringing in Branford Marsalis to provide prominent sax passages on several tracks. One in particular, “Moon Over Bourbon Street,” was a successful single in the UK but didn’t get much attention here. Sting was inspired by Anne Rice’s gothic novel “Interview With the Vampire” and the lead character’s duality as “an immortal, poignant soul who has to kill to live but wants to stop.” The reference to Bourbon Street came from Sting’s visit to New Orleans’ French Quarter one moonlit night when he felt as if he was being followed: “The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast, I’ve the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest, /Oh you’ll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet while there’s a moon over Bourbon Street…”

“Blue Moon of Kentucky,” Elvis Presley, 1954

Bill Monroe, known as “the father of bluegrass,” wrote this classic as a waltz when he first performed it on the Grand Ole Opry broadcast in 1945. Numerous country artists and early rockabilly acts often performed the song, but it wasn’t until Elvis Presley recorded it in 4/4 time as a bluesy rocker that it became more widely known in the mainstream. It became the B-side of his very first single, “That’s All Right,” on Sun Records in 1954. Monroe didn’t care for the rock version but eventually performed it in 4/4 time himself. Paul McCartney recorded it for his “Unplugged” show and album in 1991. “It was on a moonlight night, the star is shining bright, and they whispered from on high, ‘Your love has said goodbye,’ /Blue moon of Kentucky, keep on shining, shine on the one that’s gone and said goodbye…”

“The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress,” Judy Collins, 1975

As a teenager, songwriter Jimmy Webb had been a fan of science fiction books, particularly Robert Heinlein’s 1966 book “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.” He was so captivated by that title that he sought and received permission to use it as the title of a song he wrote in 1974 about how something that appears so beautiful can be fraught with danger or heartbreak. Although it was never a hit single for any artist, many recorded it, from Joe Cocker and Glen Campbell to Linda Ronstadt and Pat Metheny. I first heard it in a gorgeous arrangement on “Judith,” the 1975 Judy Collins album: “I fell out of her eyes, fell out of her heart, fell down on my face, /I tripped and missed my star, fell and fell alone, /The moon’s a harsh mistress, /the sky is made of stone, /The moon’s a harsh mistress, she’s hard to call your own…”

“Pink Moon,” Nick Drake, 1972

Among the different moons described in literature and science, the pink moon arrives in April, the first full moon after the spring equinox. “Pink” refers not to the appearance of the moon itself but the pink moss and wildflowers that bloom underneath it at that time of year, according to Native American folklore. In late 1971, British singer-songwriter Nick Drake wrote and recorded a dozen songs with just his guitar and voice, and “Pink Moon” ended up as his final album before depression and drugs ended his life prematurely. The lovely title track, and Drake’s recordings in general, gained new attention in 1999 when it was used in a Volkswagen commercial in the UK and the US.

“Sisters of the Moon,” Fleetwood Mac, 1979

This harrowing track from Fleetwood Mac’s sprawling double LP “Tusk” was born from a late-night jam session on which Lindsay Buckingham made his guitar whine and howl while Stevie Nicks chanted the rather spooky lyrics. Although it failed at #86 on US charts as a single, it proved to be quite popular in concert, where it often went on for nearly twice its 4:30 length: “She was dark at the top of the stairs, and she called to me, /And so I followed, as friends often do, /I cared not for love, nor money, /I think she knew the people, they love her, /And still they are the most cruel, /She asked me, /Be my sister, sister of the moon…”

“Moon River,” Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, 2023

This classic tune, with music by Henry Mancini and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, will forever be linked to the 1961 Audrey Hepburn film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and the 1962 instrumental recording that won multiple Grammy awards. Crooner Andy Williams turned it into his signature song, and dozens of other singers recorded it over the years. As one critic put it, “It’s a love song in which the romantic partner is the idea of romance.” How extraordinary it is that rock guitarists Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck would collaborate on this tasty arrangement featuring Beck’s sublime guitar work and Clapton’s subtle vocals. It was recorded mere months prior to Beck’s passing in January, and released in May. What a fine record!

********************************

An important note: Two songs with “moon” in the title I’ve always admired — Joni Mitchell’s “Moon at the Window” (1982) and Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (1992) — could not be included because both artists refuse to allow Spotify to stream their music.

*********************************

HONORABLE MENTION:

“Child of the Moon,” The Rolling Stones, 1968; “Bark at the Moon,” Ozzy Osbourne, 1983; “Moon Rocks,” Talking Heads, 1983; “What’s Next to the Moon,” AC/DC, 1978; “Havana Moon,” Chuck Berry, 1957; “The Boy With the Moon and Stars on His Head,” Cat Stevens, 1972; “Mad Man Moon,” Genesis, 1976; “Full Moon Night,” Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1999; “Shoot Down the Moon,” Elton John, 1985; “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” Jonathan King, 1965; “Monkberry Moon Delight,” Paul McCartney, 1971; “Rope Ladder to the Moon,” Jack Bruce, 1969; “Kiko and the Lavender Moon,” Los Lobos, 1992; “Here Comes the Moon,” George Harrison, 1979; “The Same Moon,” Phil Collins, 1996; “Moon Song,” America, 1972; “Moon Over Miami,” Ray Charles, 1960; “Black Moon,” Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 1992; “Surface of the Moon,” Del Amitri, 1992; “Shame on the Moon,” Bob Seger, 1983; “Mountains of the Moon,” Grateful Dead, 1969; “Ticket to the Moon,” Electric Light Orchestra, 1981.

************************************

More than just “moon”:

“Moondance,” Van Morrison, 1970; “Moonshadow,” Cat Stevens, 1971; “Dancing With the Moonlight Knight,” Genesis 1973; “Moonlight Drive,” The Doors, 1967; “Dancing in the Moonlight,” King Harvest, 1972; “Moonlight Mile,” The Rolling Stones, 1971; “Moonlight in Samosa,” Robert Plant, 1982; “Sonny Got Caught in the Moonlight,” Robbie Robertson, 1987; “Moonage Daydream,” David Bowie, 1972; “Under Moonshine,” The Moody Blues, 1977.

A lot depends on the luck that comes your way

Posted on by brucehhackett

Many people disagree about how important a part luck plays in determining the path our lives take.

Some believers think it’s all preordained. Others are convinced that our ambitions and actions are instrumental in causing our lives’ events to go a certain way. We may never know the answer until after we’ve passed on (and maybe not then either).

Regardless, songwriters have found the subject of luck — good and bad — to be a meaty subject for lyrics. Indeed, whether a song becomes popular is contingent on many factors — quality, connections, promotion, good timing, personnel — and luck is certainly on that list.

I’ve found many dozens of songs from the past 60-70 years that focus on luck, or the lack of it, and have selected 15 from the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s to discuss here. As always, there’s a Spotify playlist at the end that also includes another 15 “honorable mentions” that weren’t, um, lucky enough to make the cut.

Take a chance on these tunes!

********************************

“With a Little Luck,” Paul McCartney and Wings, 1978

McCartney’s catalog, and the man himself, have never been short on sunny optimism, but that has sometimes led to lightweight material that drags down the truly wonderful songs he has written. Case in point: his 1978 LP with Wings, “London Town,” is one of his weaker efforts, littered with disposable, half-finished ditties that don’t measure up. True, he was in the midst of another shakeup in the Wings lineup, but the last time that happened, the result was the exemplary “Band On the Run” LP. This time, only the album’s single, “With a Little Luck,” is even remotely worthy, a smooth, lightly synthesized melody with lyrics that examine life’s mystery and how luck can certainly help matters: “With a little luck, we can help it out,/We can make this whole damn thing work out…”

“Good Luck Charm,” Elvis Presley, 1962

Between 1956 and 1962, Presley topped the US pop charts an incredible 16 times with hit singles (and barely missed the #1 spot another nine times). The last of these came in April 1962 with his recording of “Good Luck Charm,” one of 17 written for Presley by veteran songwriter Aaron Schroeder (including “Stuck on You” and “It’s Now or Never”). Schroeder said about Presley, “Elvis wanted everything to be right, almost to the point of having tears in his eyes, because he felt himself to be struggling to get the results he wanted. He told me he was fond of the lyrics of ‘Good Luck Charm.'” “Don’t want a four leaf clover, don’t want an old horse shoe, /Want your kiss ’cause I just can’t miss with a good luck charm like you, I want a good luck charm a-hanging on my arm to have, to hold tonight…”

“Lady Luck,” Kenny Loggins, 1977

For the leadoff track to Loggins’s solo debut LP, “Celebrate Me Home,” Loggins teamed up with songwriter Johnny Townsend to write “Lady Luck,” an effervescent tune that equates casino games of chance with gambling on a romantic relationship. Townsend (who teamed with Ed Sanford on the hit single “Smoke From a Distant Fire” the same year) wrote the lyrics as a cautionary tale in which the character whose life was “a golden gamble” was in danger of throwing it all away on a long shot: “Oh, what the devil, it’s fun, his lady luck was his one companion, /And by the silver and gold, his heart had been bought and bound, /But he chanced to fall in new love, he kissed her and he cut the tie, /And kissed his lucky lady goodbye…”

“You Got Lucky,” Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, 1982

“Long After Dark,” the fifth LP by Petty and The Heartbreakers, was the first since the debut of MTV the previous year, and the music video they made for the single “You Got Lucky” was shown in heavy rotation. Petty collaborated with guitarist Mike Campbell to write the track, using a “surf guitar” sound and synthesizers for the first time, and adding new bassist/vocalist Howie Epstein to the group lineup. The lyrics take a somewhat boastful view of romantic luck, with the guy claiming it was the girl who got lucky when he found her: “You better watch what you say, you better watch what you do to me, /Don’t get carried away, girl, /If you can do better than me, go, but remember, /Good love is hard to find, you got lucky, babe, when I found you…”

“Luck Be a Lady,” Frank Sinatra, 1962

An accomplished lyricist from the 1940s named Frank Loesser took a stab at writing both music and lyrics for a featured moment in the 1950 Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls” when gambler Sky Masterson is desperate to win a big bet and needs luck to come through. Actor Robert Alda, who won a Tony award for playing Masterson, was the first to record the classic swing tune “Luck Be a Lady,” later covered by Marlon Brando in the film version, and then it became one of Sinatra’s signature songs in the 1960s, issued on the compilation LP “Sinatra ’65.” He re-recorded it with rocker Chrissie Hyde for his “Duets” album just before his death in the mid-1990s. “Let’s keep this party polite, never get out of my sight, /Stick me with me baby, I’m the fella you came in with, /Luck, be a lady tonight…”

“Lucky Man,” The Verve, 1997

Singer-songwriter Richard Ashcroft was the main guy behind England’s popular 1990s group The Verve, who had three successful LPs, most notably the 1997 #1 album “Urban Hymns” with three Top Ten singles in the UK. One of them, the majestic “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” was their only chart appearance in the US, reaching #12, but outselling it in their home country was the #1 hit “Lucky Man” (no relation to ELP’s song). Ashcroft said the song was “inspired by my relationship with my wife, and that sense of when you’re beyond the sort of peacock dance that you have early on in a relationship, and you’re getting down to the raw nature of yourselves.” “Happiness coming and going, I watch you look at me, /Watch my fever growing, I know just where I am, /Got a love that’ll never die, I’m a lucky man…”

“Good Luck Bad Luck,” Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1994

Following the 1977 plane crash that killed three band members and injured several others, the band dissolved, but a decade later, the survivors regrouped with new musicians to tour and eventually record new albums. “Endangered Species,” released in 1994, featured the late Ronnie Van Zant’s brother Johnny on lead vocals, and original member Ed King returned on guitar. It was King who wrote “Good Luck, Bad Luck” and performed the acoustic arrangement, which was something different for Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band that had more than its share of bad luck but also some good fortune as well: “It’s either good luck (I’m the last to get it) or bad luck (I’m the first), /When it’s good, ain’t nothin’ better, /When it’s bad, ain’t nothin’ worse…”

“Lucky Lucky Me,” Marvin Gaye, 1964

Motown Records was indeed a “hit factory,” where songwriters, producers and backing musicians teamed up with featured artists to record dozens of tracks, which were then reviewed by a “quality control” group and either released or shelved. They made some fine choices that topped the charts, but they also rejected some strong records that never saw the light of day until decades later. One of those was “Lucky Lucky Me,” an infectious Marvin Gaye track from 1964 that inexplicably wasn’t released until a “Best Of” package came out in England in 1994, and has still never been released in the US: “Lady Luck sure smiled on me when she blessed me with your loving charms, /I found my place in the sun, sweet heaven in your lovin’ arms, /I want to stand right up and shout it, /Lucky me, lucky lucky me…”

“Lucky Town,” Bruce Springsteen, 1992

Springsteen took a chance in 1988 when he dissolved The E Street Band and used different backing musicians when he finally released new music four years later when he released not one but two albums simultaneously. The “Human Touch” LP was something of a letdown, but “Lucky Town” was a more vibrant, honest collection of songs that reflected Springsteen’s reality of divorce, new love and fatherhood during that time frame. The title track does a nice job of reflecting the ups and downs of his career and personal life in 1992: “When it comes to luck, you make your own, tonight I got dirt on my hands, but I’m building me a new home, /Baby, down in Lucky Town, /I’m gonna lose these blues I’ve found, down in Lucky Town…”

“Some Guys Have All the Luck,” The Persuaders, 1973

A guy named Jeff Fortgang wrote this tune back in 1972 when it was first recorded by The Persuaders, the New York vocal group that had the big 1970 hit “Thin Line Between Love and Hate.” Their soul version of “Some Guys Have All the Luck” stalled at #39 in 1973, but it’s better than the cover versions that followed. Robert Palmer recorded a very different arrangement of the song in 1982, which reached #16 in the UK but petered out at #59 here. Then in 1984, Rod Stewart recorded a pop version of The Persuaders’ original, and it reached #10 on US charts. In the lyrics, the narrator bemoans how other men seem to have better luck than he does: “How does it feel when the girl next to you says she loves you? It seems so unfair when there’s love everywhere, but there’s none for me, /Some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the pain, /Some guys get all the breaks, some guys do nothing but complain…”

“Waiting For My Lucky Day,” Chris Isaak, 1996

Hailing from the San Joaquin Valley of California, Isaak crafted a pleasing blend of country blues, folk ballads and rockabilly music that won him success on the US pop charts in the late 1980s and 1990s. His sultry single “Wicked Game” reached #6 in 1989, and attracted the attention of filmmakers who not only used his music but cast him in small roles as well. His sixth LP, “The Baja Sessions,” included the tropical-sounding “Waiting For My Lucky Day,” a melancholy tune that nevertheless retained a ray of hope: “Lost everything I had in Texas, a millon dreams went by in Texas, /Sometimes the same life turns against us, but I’m waiting for my lucky day, /I watch the sun go down, I keep hanging on waiting for the wind to change, /I watch the sun go down, And I keep hanging on, waiting for my lucky day…” 

“Lucky Guy,” Todd Rundgren, 1978

The multi-talented Rundgren developed a reputation for being something of a one-man show, writing all his songs, playing all the the instruments and producing every track. By the late ’70s, despite touring regularly, he became known as a studio recluse, which inspired the 1978 album title “Hermit of Mink Hollow” (the street where he lived in upstate New York). “Can We Still Be Friends?” was the hit single from the LP, but there’s a also a nice little deep track called “Lucky Guy” that poignantly captures the self-pity of a man who wishes he had better luck in life: “And when there’s pain, he never minds it, /When it’s lost, he always finds it, /Nobody really knows just why, he just must be a lucky guy, I wish I was that lucky guy…”

“Running Out of Luck,” Mick Jagger, 1985

Jagger’s decision to head off on a solo career in the mid-’80s didn’t sit well with his colleagues in The Rolling Stones, especially Keith Richards, who felt some of the songs Jagger recorded would’ve been better on a Stones album, and he might be right. The first LP he attempted, 1985’s “She’s the Boss,” reached #13 in the US, thanks to the single “Just Another Night,” but follow-up singles fared poorly. Jagger wrote most of the tunes himself, including “Running Out of Luck,” one of the deeper album tracks, which features the great Jeff Beck on lead guitar and jazz fusion star Herbie Hancock on keyboards: “Running out of heat, running out of gas, running out of money way too fast, /Running out of liquor, there’s nothing left to eat, running out of luck, hungry for the meat…”

“Luck of the Draw,” Bonnie Raitt, 1991

Raitt had just won multiple Grammy awards for her 1989 LP “Nick of Time,” including Album of the Year, and she was eager to build on that momentum, writing several new songs and collaborating with other songwriters for her next LP, 1991’s “Luck of the Draw,” which actually outperformed “Nick of Time,” peaking at #2 on US album charts, thanks to its Top Five single “Something to Talk About.” The title song was one of two written by Northern Ireland musician Paul Brady, who claimed to be a big believer in the role that luck and coincidence can play in a person’s life: “These things we do to keep the flame burning and write our fire in the sky, /Another day to see the wheel turning, another avenue to try, /It’s in the luck of the draw, baby, the natural law, /Forget those movies you saw, it’s in the luck of the draw…”

“Lucky Man,” Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 1970

Incredibly, singer/bassist Greg Lake was only 12 when he came up with this song, inspired by the books he read about medieval times. Ten years later, after a brief stint with King Crimson, Lake teamed up with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer to form one of the more commercially successful progressive rock groups of that era. They resurrected Lake’s early tune and turned it into their first single, augmented by Emerson’s early noodlings on the synthesizer. As the lyrics reveal, the “lucky man” in question wasn’t so lucky after all, as he was shot and killed in battle in the final stanza, but he sure appeared fortunate at first: “He had white horses, and ladies by the score, /All dressed in satin and waiting by the door, /Ooooh, what a lucky man he was…”

***********************************

Honorable mentions:

“Lucky One,” Michael Penn, 2000; “Lucky,” Donna Summer, 1979; “Hard Luck Woman,” Kiss, 1976; “One of the Lucky Ones,” John Batdorf and Michael McLean, 2014; “Lucky Lips,” Ruth Brown, 1957; “Bad Luck,” Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, 1974; “Lucky Star,” Madonna, 1983; “Lucky Day,” Thompson Twins, 1983; “If I Ever Get Lucky,” Merle Haggard, 2007; “Lucky in Love,” Mick Jagger, 1985; “Third Time Lucky,” Foghat, 1979; “Lucky Man,” Ronnie Wood, 2010; “I Feel Lucky,” Mary Chapin-Carpenter, 1992; “Lucky Kid,” Sheryl Crow, 2002; “Twice If You’re Lucky,” Crowded House, 2010; “Lucky Day,” Tom Waits, 1993.

*************************************