Lucky Town is the 10th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. The album was released on March 27, 1992,
Background
Springsteen was working on
Human Touch, which he intended to release sometime in 1990, but the project took him longer than he thought. He shelved the project in early 1991 and came back to it in September of the same year. Intending to record one more song for the album ("Living Proof"),
he ended up with 10 new songs. Once he completed the sessions, he decided to put the 10 new songs on a separate album, which became
Lucky Town, and to release it at the same time as
Human Touch. While most of the songs from the album have received few performances since the reunion of the E Street Band, "If I Should Fall Behind" was played at every show during the 1999–2000 Reunion Tour and was included in the
DVD and CD release.
Themes
Compared to
Human Touch,
Lucky Town has a more stripped down, folk-based sound and is more personal in its songs' lyrics.
Human Touch consisted of mostly love songs, while
Lucky Town focuses on more specific events in Springsteen's life.
The opening track "Better Days" expresses his desire to start over after some rough patches in his life (his divorce from his first wife).
"Living Proof" is about the birth of his first son and "Local Hero" is about a time that he saw a picture of himself in a store window, which the salesgirl said was a picture of "just a local hero".
"Souls of the Departed" recalls "Born in the U.S.A." in its sound and social commentary. The song was inspired by the
Gulf War.
Critical reception
Upon release the album received generally positive reviews.
Rolling Stone gave the album a positive review (a combined review with its companion album,
Human Touch), but thought that the aims of the two albums "would have been better realized by a single, more carefully shaped collection."
In a mostly positive review,
AllMusic said of the album: "While
Human Touch was a disappointing album of second-rate material,
Lucky Town is an ambitious collection addressing many of Springsteen's major concerns and moving them forward."
Robert Christgau of The Village Voice called it a "ponderous, well-crafted disappointment, a shorter and by most accounts lighter piece of work than its more songful corelease Human Touch."
In The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics poll for the year's best albums, Lucky Town placed at number 17 in the voting,
Track listing
All songs are written by Bruce Springsteen.
Unreleased outtakes
Eleven songs were written during these sessions with the song "Happy" being the only outtake; it was eventually released on the
Tracks box set.
[ Brucebase – Lucky Town – Studio Sessions]
Personnel
-
Bruce Springsteen – guitar, lead vocals, keyboards, bass, harmonica, percussion
Additional Musicians
- Technical
-
Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin – Record producer
-
Roy Bittan – additional production on "Leap of Faith", "The Big Muddy" and "Living Proof"
-
Toby Scott – Audio engineer
-
Greg Goldman, Robert "RJ" Jaczko, Randy Wine – assistant engineering
-
Bob Clearmountain – Mixing engineer
-
Bob Ludwig – mastering
-
Scott Hull, Dave Collins – digital editing
-
Sandra Choron – art direction
-
Victor Weaver – typography design
-
David Rose – cover photography, interior photography
-
Pam Springsteen – interior photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Certifications
Notes
External links
