Lucky Town

 

 

Create your own review

As Bruce Springsteen grew in stature and fame, touching audiences who were not content to bob their heads to vacuous pop pap, he seared hearts with cautionary and familiar tales of the dark desperation in our lives that drags us all down and the admonishment to believe it didn't have to be that way. To rise above the Badlands of our births, to pull ourselves away from the flow of fate and find the promised land of our dreams. He said, I know you, I love you, and I respect you. You are all my people and I believe in you like you believe in me. Don't give up, don't surrender. Join together, even if it's just two or three of you, and make a courageous stand. Take the risk of believing in your self in the face of all the darkness that says you can't and the whisper in your own soul that says it's too late.
Yet the emptiness can't be overcome alone. There comes a day when solitude confines and the heart seeks a connection that can only come from the greatest risk, to accept the love of another and vow to make a great life together. A day when all those sweet songs of yesterday have to stop playing in our head and reality must finally be faced once and for all. Bruce loved and lost, married a dream girl, and lost her quickly. He was left wondering if he had been nothing but a gilded sham. On the cusp of middle-age, was he really able to offer the world anything more of substance if he couldn't even build a genuine intimate life with one person? He had explored the darkness for many years and realized that the old saying was true: stare into the abyss too long and the abyss stares back into you. Only real love could keep him from falling in, once again. And that kind of love that would require all the things he had been singing about for 25 years: courage, faith, humility, and hard work, built from the ground up on a foundation of belief in one's self. It would put all his beliefs on trial.
A gypsy girl running from her own set of pain fell into his life, a gift that none of his millions could buy, nor keep. All that he was still fleeing from would have to be dealt with; all that he wanted to run to was waiting as his reward. Only his willingness to put himself second, to make a stand for love, and to finally put faith and hope to the test, would keep this love, and his spirit, alive. No more running away, the tramps are coming home.
With this album, Bruce celebrates the price and the reward of real love, and the blessings that follow. It is not all sunshine, but it was his happiest album (and much to my and Bruce's consternation, sold much less than his blockbusters of the 70's & 80's). It has the joyful affirmation that deep love brings to life, and the resolute satisfaction from understanding the secret to a good life is to make your own as good as it can be and make someone else's even better.
A few months after Lucky Town was released, with his parents in attendance, Bruce took the mike and told his audience, "my Dad's always tellin' me, 'why don't you ever write any happy music?' Well, Dad," he said grinning up at old Doug, "I wrote a whole album of 'happy music' and it's only selling about half as much!!" He then proceeded to play with power, delight, and happy abandon that even the old diehards from the Asbury Park days said they had rarely ever seen. High in the seats, Douglas Springsteen's beaming smile poured down on the stage like a cleansing rain.
As with all of Springsteen's albums, the theme of Lucky Town reflects the notion that with courage and simple determination, you can change your life for the better. You can't change where you came from (that's the only big Lucky chance we're likely to get in life, and that's unchanging and farther away every day). You can't undo most of what you have done. But you can change who you are and where you are going, starting with your attitude and your heart. This album is often derided as one of Bruce's most "lightweight" efforts, nowhere near the stature of "Darkness" or "Born To Run" or even "Born In The USA". I love those albums deeply but find Lucky Town to be on a par because of the optimism that follows his previous darkness. many aren't ready to hear that message, perhaps, and find it hard to accept. By the time Bruce was nearly 40, he was finding himself rich beyond his wildest dreams, loved by millions, yet divorced and lonely. How could he be so unfulfilled? When a new love (his 2nd and present wife Patty, mother of his three children) entered his life he realized he had another Lucky chance to recreate himself for the better. Few will ever reach his fame and fortune but many will find chances for redemption, as he did. To make that chance work requires a transformation. Self-doubt and self-pity must be replaced by hope. Cameron Crowe, writer, Springsteen fan and director of the incredible movie, "Say Anything..."; and John Cusack, the star (and another Springsteen fan), use the line, "Optimism as a revolutionary act," referring to how the courageous positive attitude of even one person can change the lives of everyone around him, and to himself. In so many ways, to our hearts, the world does indeed revolve around us. We need a revolution to change ourselves, our friends, our Town, our world. A revolution of one, a revolution of hope. There is nothing Lucky about it. (By Ken Malcomson)

This album spawned only two Top 10 hits,BETTER DAYS and the title track. That's why I entitled this review "A not-so LUCKY TOWN". However,country star Faith Hill covered IF I SHOULD FALL BEHIND several years later. All the other songs are pretty good. This album's twin,HUMAN TOUCH had no more sales success than this. I'm not saying either album flopped,but neither was a megahit like THE RIVER,BORN IN THE U.S.A. and TUNNEL OF LOVE.

This album, along with Human Touch, are probably the most under-rated of all of Springsteen's albums. I really think that the radio airplay in the early 90s missed the mark totally, by ignoring songs like "If I Should Fall Behind", "Leap of Faith", "Living Proof", "Book of Dreams", and "My Beautiful Reward".

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review

› See all 5 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

 

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all...
I'm from NJ & grew up listening to this guy. Yes, like most of the masses, I was pissed when he struck out on his own, but got over it after listening to this album &... Read more

Published on Sep 26 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular
Bruce Springsteen, who has been known as a guy to listen to on a dreary day, comes through big time here. Read more

Published on Jun 12 2003 by Andy Beres

Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

› See all 5 customer reviews on Amazon.ca

Search Listmania!