Customer Reviews

Lucky Town [Vinyl]

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of Bruce's most underrated CD's. It's the first album in many years where he didn't sound as if he was struggling with inner demons. The opening song, "Better Days," certainly makes this point in a forthright way. In addition, the title track rocks, "If I Should Fall Behind" is one of the Boss' most beautiful songs, and "Leap of Faith" uses biblical metaphors to describe the start of a delightful relationship. I also like the darker numbers "Souls of the Departed" and "The Big Muddy." But generally speaking, this is a sweet snapshot of secure love, in contrast to the collapsing romances depicted on Bruce's earlier album, The Tunnel of Love. You can usually see this CD in used CD bins. Don't hesitate to pick it up.

We're approaching 14 years now since this album was released. I can still remember the day I unwrapped it. I was a freshman in high school, timidly trying to straddle the line between the various musical factions of the day: R&B and Grunge. I knew there had to be something better, it just took a "Leap of Faith" to reach it.

I like to think my musical taste got better. These days, sorting my iPod by play count yields a pretty eclectic mix: The Shins, The White Stripes, DELTRON3030, Liz Phair, and Marty Robbins are all at or near the top. And, of course, the entire track list of Lucky Town is right up there with them.

I venture to say that I've listened to this album at least once every month in the last fourteen years, and often many more times. Every time I do, I'm 15 again, dreaming about a life yet to be lived with the kind of optimism and naivete that we adults take drugs to experience again.

Without gushing on and on about this album, I would like to thank The Boss for this often-overlooked gift. Four short months ago, my wife and I spent just under three minutes stumbling over each other in front of all our friends and family. Since the day I first heard it 14 years ago, "If I Should Fall Behind" was forever linked in my mind with what a marriage should be. In my mind, no other song has come close to pairing such a plaintive request with such a heartfelt assurance, intertwining them in a way that no one--even the coldest-footed groom--could misunderstand.

Buy this album. I promise you won't be sorry.

ME.

Lucky Town is the most Springsteenian of the two CDs released in 1992. Sonically, Human Touch is a direct descendant of the Born in the USA sessions with a focus on love more than any previous CD. Normally, listeners get the 'falling in love' CD and then the heartbreak CD. Look at the last two Sheryl Crow CDs for a taste of that. Not so Springsteen. Tunnel of Love was the cheating record, questioning his feelings and the efficacy of love itself. Then, Bruce falls in love, deeper than before, and writes a collection of songs about it. That's the bulk of Human Touch.

But Lucky Town shows the old Bruce reemerging, the disillusioned one, the one who doesn't want to believe in love--because the world is just too damn hard--but does so anyway. "Better Days," one of the two singles released in 1992 ("Human Touch" was the other) kicks off the CD with a rim shot and power chord you could put down in the rock-and-roll Bible, if there was one. What makes Springsteen unique when it comes to love songs is the types of couplets he chooses. This ain't some 70s-era flowery, string-laden love song. This is the real world, and the real world brings with it bumps and bruises as well as the redemptive power of love. Witness the first verse (and there's a lot there):

Well my soul checked out missing as I sat listening
To the hours and minutes tickin' away
Yeah, just sittin' around waitin' for my life to begin
While it was all just slippin' away.
I'm tired of waitin' for tomorrow to come
Or that train to come roarin' 'round the bend
I got a new suit of clothes a pretty red rose
And a woman I can call my friend

Who among us can't admit that there have been times when we've thought life was moving along underneath us while we're sitting still? I don't see any hands. But does Bruce mope? No. He gets his new skin ("suit of clothes"), a new lease on life ("pretty red rose"), and a friend with which to walk down the road of life. He takes control of his life, sloppy though it may be, but tells us all that he couldn't have done it without his wife.

It is this kind of sentiment that resonates throughout the music and words of Lucky Town. When it comes down to it, we are each responsible for ourselves. We can't blame anyone or anything for our choices because we all have choices to make. Some are good, some bad, but we have to live with the consequences. Four tracks later, the song "Leap of Faith" bursts out with a riff on the same theme. At first, Bruce sings "Oh heartbreak and despair got nothing but boring/So I grabbed you baby like a wild pitch" and then breaks into the chorus: "It takes a leap of faith to get things going/It takes a leap of faith you gotta show some guts/It takes a leap of faith to get things going/In your heart you must trust." Springsteen leaped...and landed on solid ground. And he brings with him the stories from both sides.

This isn't to say that there aren't challenges to overcome or a few you can't. Springsteen laments gang violence in his adopted hometown of LA in "Souls of the Departed." In fact, his response ("Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed/All I can think of is what if it would've been him instead/I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down/Right here on my own piece of dirty ground") garnered some ire back in 1992. Sure, Bruce is rich enough to build those walls. How about the rest of us?

The highlight of CD is his most personal song, "Living Proof." And it's one of the greatest examples of Bruce adopting Gospel-tinged lyrics in his music. He talks about prayer, life, God, and everything else. His incorporation of religious-themed lyrics proved essential when he wrote 2002's "The Rising" in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. But they work well here, too. After his leap, after finding the right woman, he was still unsure. Like he sings, "In a world so hard and dirty so fouled and confused," he was "Searching for a little bit of God's mercy." He was searching for living proof. What was Bruce's problem? The same that many of us can related to, I expect.

I put my heart and soul I put 'em high upon a shelf
Right next to the faith the faith that I'd lost in myself
I went down into the desert city/Just tryin' so hard to shed my skin
I crawled deep into some kind of darkness
Lookin' to burn out every trace of who I'd been
You do some sad sad things baby/When it's your you 're tryin' to lose
You do some sad and hurtful things/I've seen living proof

What's the answer? Get up. Stand up, with the help of a friend, if you need it. But someone (or some way) to do this:

You shot through my anger and rage
To show me my prison was just an open cage
There were no keys no guards
Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars

Brilliant. And the live version (which you can find on his 1992 CD "MTV Unplugged: In Concert"--highly recommended for all versions of his new 1992 songs) blows your speakers out with its power.

What do you get after all of this suffering and self-awareness? The mountaintop. Having just come through the valley of darkness, through all the tribulations of his life since his career began, Springsteen tells of his "beautiful reward." His character is searching for his beautiful reward but Springsteen has found his: a loving wife, children, a house, and a good job. It don't get much better than that.

Lucky Town may not the best Bruce Springsteen CD out there, but it is worthy to stand alongside the great ones. Give it another listen or listen for the first time. And think about your own life. I'll bet you that at least one song from this collection will resonate with you. Find that song and add it to you Life's Playlist. You won't be disappointed. (excerpted from http://scottdparker.blogspot.com)

I agree with Glenn J Wiener, with the music fan from Minneapolis, and with any others who say that this album is underrated. It is! I liked it a lot when it was released, and I still do. The songs are strong and the playing, while perhaps lacking some of the personality of the E Street band, is nevertheless workman-like and effective enough. And Bruce, who was obviously in a restless state when this (and Human Touch) was released, is in very good voice. Speaking personally, my wife and I used the beautiful If I Should Fall on a wedding mix CD we made to give to our guests. It's a gorgeous tune, as is Beautiful Reward. And songs like Better Days, Lucky Town and Leap of Faith sound triumphant. So it's a record that covers a handful of moods, but covers them very effectively, something Bruce Springsteen can do so very well.

Lucky Town is lyrically stunning. The ballads, especially, like "Book of Dreams", "If I Should Fall Behind" and "My Beautiful Reward", are perfect readings of these lyrics.

As far as rockin out, the MTV "Plugged" CD provides better versions of "Lucky Town" and "Better Days" - especially Bruce's HOT HOT HOT guitar solo on "Lucky Town" - but that is not to slight these studio versions. I just tend to prefer the sound/feel of live recordings.

And, my personal favorite: "Leap of Faith." I wish Bruce would add it to the current tour!

Still, a must for Bruce-aholics. Others might think twice as I've seen an awful lot of this CD in the used CD sections of local record stores. Too bad.

It doesn't have the E Street Band. It doesn't have a lot of songs about cars and girls and factories and battling working-class despair (all worthy topics Springsteen covers exceptionally well elsewhere in his catalog). What _Lucky Town_ has is ten of the most honest, moving songs ever recorded about achieving maturity, gaining perspective, starting a family, and discovering that redemption and renewal can be found in the simplest things in life. This album came out a year after the birth of my youngest son and expresses better than I could ever hope to what it means to be a father, a husband, a man. Thanks, Bruce.

Lucky Town is the better one of the two CD's published simultaneously by 'the Boss' in 1992 (the other was Human Touch). Overall a straightforward and pleasant CD. However, the songs 'Better Days' and 'Lucky Town' are among the best Springsteen has written: Music with beat and drive, perfect songs to roll down your windows and hit the highway.

If you read through the various reviews here you might get the impression that Bruce's "Happy" album is a lighthearted trip among the fluffy clouds but that wouldn't be accurate. Springsteen isn't some dreamy-eyed fella sitting peacefully in a garden full of fragrant flowers here, he's a guy emerging from a culvert covered in blood, sweat and tears who is relieved to find the light at the end of a dark tunnel. His voice is so great on this album, revealing a man who has rediscovered his faith in love. Overall it doesn't contain the musical power that he pulls out of the E Street Band but his emotion-filled vocals have never been more piercing and effective. These are terrific songs of triumph and hope and overcoming heartache through introspective perseverance.

This is the album that sits closely, but comfortably next to you in a booth in your small town café. The title track sounds out the average American soul lost in the middle of life. It does not have any pretension, just an honest rather tristful attitude from the boss. Quiet and the most heartland of all his albums, true fans will find these deep tracks to be different but definitely on par with his popular sounds. I'm proud to bear this album as my nickname:)! Here's to the all-American boss.

Bruce Springsteen fans were left feeling a little hungry by their hero in the decade of the 90s. He released only three studio albums, of which this one is the best. Unfortunately, it was released simultaneously with the lesser "Human Touch." Combining the best songs from the two would have given Bruce another first rate album to rival "Born in the U.S.A." Seperately, each has good songs but is not uniformly excellent. "Lucky Town" came out for the better as each of the first six songs are uniformly fine. The second half lags, however. Overall, this is a good Springsteen album that makes you wonder about the missed opportunity for greatness (again).