Day 13: I'm Lucky

 

Day 13: I’m Lucky

Part of my song-a-day writing project for January 2024. Also part of this month’s The Fearless Songwriter challenge.

Lyrics:

Well, I woke up late today
Haven't seen a paycheck since
Last year back in May
Now the mercury hangs low
Under seven feet of snow
But, hey, I got no place to go

And my car broke down again
Won't get a cab, a bus
Or even catch a train
And it's too far to the store
But I can still get liquor
Delivered to my door

'Cause I'm lucky, that's for sure
Yeah, I'm lucky, I can't ignore
That I'm lucky to have
All the blessings that I have
Yeah, I'm lucky

For a year I've been alone
Well, sure, some new friends came
But they just as soon were gone
And my family wants to use me
If I let them, they'll abuse me
But my destiny
Is not for them to choose

'Cause I'm lucky, it's plain to see
Yeah, I'm lucky that I'm me
And I'm lucky to have known
All the scoundrels that I've known
Yeah, I'm lucky

And when you're down
You buy some tickets to play
I went in for gas
Then I scratched away the grey

I was lucky that fateful day
Now I'm lucky everyday
Yeah, I'm lucky, I can't deny
I'll be lucky until the day that I die
I'm lucky

***

Details: I was supposed to have a co-write today, but it was -10 degrees this morning, and my car wouldn't start. I didn't want to risk getting stranded in Fort Collins on the way back, so we decided to reschedule. I have nowhere I need to be until Tuesday, so I used the Instacart app (that I neglected to delete) and ordered enough groceries to get me by for a few days, and just hunkered down.

The 13th is the first anniversary of my roommate's death, so that was on my mind today. That, and leaving my job in the middle of the year, made for a pretty sh!tty 2023. But the fact is, I have been damn lucky to be in a situation where I could actually grieve and take my time to get back into the swing of things. So while I was eating dinner, the "I'm lucky..." part of the chorus came to me, and the songwriting had begun.

That was going to be the theme, about how crappy things are, but how you can still be lucky if you have patient friends and family around you. But then halfway through writing, it dawned on me that the character I was singing about had won the lottery, but he was one of those cases where winning wasn't necessarily a good thing. Winning the lottery can complicate your family life, cause resentment amongst your friends (to the point of getting murdered), and some folks can't handle the change in lifestyle then go spiraling out of control, sometimes ending up broke or in the thrall of addiction.

I was running out of time (I finished this around 11:30), so the song ended up being a bit of a hybrid of those two stories. When I get to revising it, I'm going to try to do it with the lottery win in mind. I want it to be slowly revealed, but I can probably throw in more hints of what's going on in the early verses.

Musically, I think the chorus is really hooky. I started writing on the guitar and tried to come up with a fancy riff to build around, but it eluded me. The recording took longer to do than I expected, and my vocals were getting noticeably weaker each take, so I decided to just go with this one.