Songwriting

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!

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“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…”

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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.

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I just need some place where I can lay my head

Posted on by brucehhackett

So much of the classic rock music from the 1960s and 1970s is bombastic, frenetic, more show than substance. And then there are the artists who are musical craftsmen, playing their instruments with understated grace and dexterity, and writing honest songs with unique structures and timeless lyrics.

One of the best examples of the latter is The Band and its guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson, who died last week at age 80.

Full confession: I have always respected The Band and what they accomplished, but I wouldn’t call myself a big fan. I saw them once in concert (1974) as part of a triple bill and bought only their debut album and a “Best Of” package after they’d disbanded. Once I got around to seeing their acclaimed concert film “The Last Waltz” many years after the fact, I began a comprehensive exploration of their catalog, and am very glad I finally did. There’s much to be enjoyed and admired.

My musician friend Irwin Fisch is what you might call an ardent devotee of The Band, and I sought his knowledge and opinions this past week about their impact on him and on music in general. He responded with so much commentary (both emotional and technical) that I should’ve just turned my blog over to him for this week’s entry. I share some of his observations later on in this tribute.

To call Robertson and his oeuvre influential would be a gross understatement. While The Band enjoyed a period of commercial success, it seems to me that their impact was more broadly felt among other musicians, both their peers and the generations who followed their initial career arc (1968-1976). Consider the comments of these luminaries about the group’s sound and Robertson’s contributions:

“Robbie Robertson is one of my all-time favorite guitar players. He doesn’t need to play 10,000 notes a second. He’s much more concerned with the overall song and structure than his own personal prowess.” — George Harrison, 1970

“R.I.P. Robbie Robertson, a good friend and a genius. The Band’s music shocked the excess out of the Renaissance and was an essential part of the back-to-the-roots trend of the late ‘60s. He was an underrated, brilliant guitar player who added immeasurably to Bob Dylan’s best tour and best album.” — “Miami” Steve Van Zandt

“The way (Robertson’s) guitar was woven into the fabric of those songs helped create some of the greatest timeless music ever made — true American music (from the continent of America) that defies categorization and somehow becomes even more relevant and reverent decade after decade.” — Warren Haynes, The Allman Brothers Band

“For me, it was serious. It was grown-up. It was mature. It told stories and had beautiful harmonies. Beautiful musicianship without any virtuosity. Economy and beauty. Their music shook me to the core. They were craftsmen, and they got it right.” — Eric Clapton, inducting The Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994

The Band’s body of work — especially its first two LPs, 1968’s “Music From Big Pink” and 1969’s “The Band” — seemed wholly unique, going totally against the grain of both the pop mainstream as well as the psychedelic underground scene of that era. Robertson, drummer Levon Helm, organist Garth Hudson, pianist Richard Manuel and bassist Rick Danko were indeed a band in the best sense of the word: five earnest, dedicated instrumentalists who also sang up a storm and eschewed individual virtuosity in deference to the musical whole. Their recorded legacy stands as a testament to their communal work ethic and their many years as a performing entity honing their craft before they found fame.

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Robertson, born Jamie Royal Robertson in Toronto, was only 18 when he became lead guitarist in The Hawks, a Canadian group that played behind Arkansas rockabilly frontman Ronnie Hawkins in the early ’60s, with drummer (and fellow Arkansan) Helm holding down the beat. Original members fell by the wayside, and were eventually replaced with Hudson, Manuel and Danko, and from then on, the fivesome performed relentlessly behind Hawkins for three long years, even recording a few tracks, like the lively cover of “Who Do You Love?” with Robertson’s scorching lead guitar that got radio play in Canada.

The Band, when they were The Hawks in the early ’60s, with Robertson at far right

But in 1964, as Helm put it, “We’d always wanted to be our own band, not a backing band for someone else doing blues covers.” They headed out on their own as Levon and The Hawks, developing a sterling reputation as one of the tightest bands in the business. It wasn’t long before Bob Dylan, who was in the midst of a seismic transformation from folkie to rocker, approached Robertson and Helm to play lead guitar and drums at a couple of gigs in New York and L.A. When that led to an invitation to go on a lengthy tour, Helm said, “Hire us all, or don’t hire anybody,” and with that, The Hawks became Dylan’s touring band.

Among Dylan’s original fan base, The Hawks were vilified. “Bob would play his acoustic set, which the folk music crowd loved,” recalled Robertson several years later, “but after intermission when we joined him on stage, the booing started. People didn’t just disapprove. They violently hated it, and I thought, ‘What is this shit about? We’re just playing some music.’ I said to the guys in The Hawks, and to Dylan, ‘They’re wrong. The world is wrong. This is really good.’ We started playing louder, harder, bolder. Kind of preaching our sermon of music. People still said, ‘What’s wrong with these guys? Why do they keep insisting on doing this?’ Somewhere inside, we thought that what we were doing was really good. In time, the world came around.”

Dylan and Robertson in 1965

Robertson ended up playing on a few tracks from Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” LP, notably “Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat,” but after Dylan’s motorcycle accident in 1966 and his self-imposed seclusion, The Hawks chose to hole up in upstate New York near Dylan’s retreat there. They spent many weeks and months writing, rehearsing and recording a broad range of material that, eight years later, would materialize as “The Basement Tapes,” a double album capturing Dylan and The Hawks together.

Meanwhile, the folks at Capitol Records took an interest in The Hawks, who chose to rename themselves simply The Band. Armed with original songs by Robertson, and a couple by Manuel and Dylan, they recorded the unassuming “Music From Big Pink,” a reference to the pink ranch house where they’d been writing and rehearsing. When it was released in July 1968, Robertson reflected, “People said, ‘What is this? This doesn’t fit in. This isn’t what’s happening.’ And we said, ‘Thank you, mission accomplished!'”

The Band in 1969: Hudson, Robertson, Helm, Danko, Manuel

Several of the songs (“Caledonia Mission,” “To Kingdom Come,” “Chest Fever”) turned heads, and their version of Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” may be the best version out there. But the one that truly stood out was “The Weight,” an extraordinary parable with Biblical connotations that established Robertson as a songwriting force to be reckoned with. It remains The Band’s most widely known and beloved piece, a song for the ages.

In addition to their exemplary musicianship, The Band boasted three singers, led usually by Helm, although both Manuel and Danko took turns handling lead vocals on occasion. Their harmonies were not as pristine as, say, Crosby, Stills and Nash, but they offered a rustic nature that perfectly suited the honest lyrics and down-home music. “A little bit of country, blues, gospel and rock, stirred over time into an original stew” is the way one critic described The Band’s sound. It has come to be known as Americana with many followers among more recent generations.

Robertson continued churning out quality material and emerged as the chief tunesmith as they assembled songs for their sophomore effort, 1969’s “The Band,” which is widely regarded as the group’s high-water mark. It was a critical success and reached #9 on the US album chart, spurred by the single “Up on Cripple Creek” (which reached #25) and such gems as “The Unfaithful Servant,” “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” and “Across the Great Divide.” Also found on the album was “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the classic tale inspired by the final days of the Civil War which, unfortunately, is better known by the inferior cover version Joan Baez recorded in 1971.

Their next album, “Stage Fright,” charted even higher (#5), but 1971’s “Cahoots” was flat and uninspired, giving lie to reports that all was not well in The Band’s camp, where excessive drug and alcohol use were taking their toll on the music and relationships among the members. In Robertson’s memoir “Testimony,” he wrote how Danko and Helm in particular developed a heroin habit while Manuel fell prey to alcohol abuse. Robertson admitted he, too, experimented but not to the extent of some of the other members. “Being in the moment at the time, it was, on a good day, frightening to think, ‘I hope somebody doesn’t die.’ Let me be very clear: I was no angel. I was not Mr. Responsible. I was just better off than others, and in a position to say, ‘Is everyone okay?'” In addition to the songwriting, he also took on a more active role in their financial matters.

It should be mentioned that Helm held a simmering resentment against Robertson for failing to give him (and Manuel and Danko) partial songwriting credit on songs they helped compose. In particular, Helm claims he wrote lyrics passages in “The Weight” but never saw any royalties, and he complained publicly about it in his 1994 autobiography “This Wheel’s on Fire.” The Helm/Robertson estrangement went on for decades and kept Helm away from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Robertson and Helm in 1969

In any event, in 1972, a strong double live LP, “Rock of Ages,” masked the internal problems for a spell, but a limp album of covers that followed, 1973’s “Moondog Matinee,” had people worriedly shaking their heads. What had become of these former musical heroes?

The Band reunited with Dylan for his “Planet Waves” LP and returned to the concert circuit with him for an enormously successful tour, captured on the double live LP “Before the Flood,” which peaked at #3 in 1974. But Robertson, showing signs of disillusionment at the grueling life on the road, relocated to Malibu, California, in 1975. There, he wrote the batch of songs which would become, in essence, the original lineup’s final studio album, “Northern Lights – Southern Cross,”” which includes such fine moments as “Ophelia,” “It Makes No Difference,” “Forbidden Fruit” and a personal favorite, “Acadian Driftwood.” Critics were mixed about it, some calling the production “glossy and slick” with little of the close-knit playing that marked their earlier achievements, but I like it just fine.

Robertson orchestrated the disbanding of the group with an extravagant, all-star Thanksgiving 1976 concert at San Francisco’s Winterland labeled “The Last Waltz.” No doubt sensing this would be viewed as “going out on top,” all five members turned in superb performances, as did such guests as Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison. Robertson sought out filmmaker Martin Scorsese, whose career was in a valley of sorts between the peaks of “Taxi Driver” and “Raging Bull,” and he agreed to film the event, ultimately adding documentary-type interview footage, redefining how good a rock concert film could be when it was released to rave reviews in 1978.

Robertson and Scorsese nurtured a mutual admiration over the ensuing decades as they collaborated on numerous projects, including the successful “Casino” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” and, most recently, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” due to be released later this year. Robertson also did some film producing, screenwriting and acting, most notably in 1980’s “Carny,” inspired by his time working with carnival people in his youth.

Robertson never completely gave up on traditional songwriting and recording, eventually releasing six solo studio LPs of original material between 1987 and 2019. His eponymous debut, produced by wunderkind Daniel Lanois and featuring Peter Gabriel, includes such stellar tracks as “Fallen Angel” (a tribute to Manuel, who had taken his own life the previous year) and the spooky “Somewhere Down the Crazy River.” Of the other five solo albums, I’m partial to his 2011 package titled “How To Become Clairvoyant,” featuring a slew of guests like Eric Clapton, Tom Morello, Steve Winwood and Trent Reznor.

So what was it about Robertson that made him so special? Let’s turn it over to Irwin:

“He seemed to be unusually well read, and everybody talks about how his songs vividly conjure the American South of old, or at least its archetypes and mythology. His imagery was cinematic and specific, exemplifying the “show it, don’t tell it” maxim of great writing.  He very rarely used adjectives. His verses were like closeups, focusing solely on characters, their words and their actions, while his choruses were more like wide shots, suspending the narrative to comment on it (often obliquely) and give the bigger picture.”

“Musically, you can hear that he’d absorbed a lot of rock ’n’ roll, country, folk and gospel, but he melded them into his own language. Robbie’s songs were the perfect grist that put and kept The Band’s mill in business. As unique, phenomenally crafted and captivating as the songs were, it’s hard to imagine how they’d be regarded without the voices of Levon, Richard and Rick, and the arrangements and playing of The Band as a well-oiled unit.

“To me, Robertson’s guitar playing was unmistakable in its phrasing, especially on his solos. It was a conversational style, taken from the blues. His solos were raw, unstructured monologues, never composed, never a climatic ending. He finished what he had to say and stopped talking.”

Robertson in 2019

There you have it. Gifted lyricist, inventive songwriter, distinctive guitarist. An enormously influential presence during his time among us, and now he’s gone. But his recorded legacy remains, and Irwin and I urge you to dive into the bounty he left behind.

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