Songwriters who start their craft at an extremely young age often dismiss the material they created when they were in their formative musical years. Thankfully, Greg Lake didn’t follow that policy.
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Lake brought one of his earliest songs to the sessions of the debut album by Emerson, Lake & Palmer. And “Lucky Man” became one of the most well-known tracks in the trio’s catalog.
A Prog Trio
Keith Emerson and Greg Lake connected under fortuitous circumstances in 1969. Both were looking to move on from their previous bands, Emerson from The Nice and Lake from King Crimson. They decided to join forces, but they needed a drummer. Their management suggested Carl Palmer, who wowed the group at an audition.
Since the three men had a bit of cachet from the work with their previous groups, they decided they’d simply use their own names on the marquee. One of the first gigs that Emerson, Lake & Palmer played was in front of hundreds of thousands of spectators at the Isle Of Wight Festival in Great Britain. They delivered an outstanding performance, which led to a record deal.
The band’s self-titled debut album, released in 1970, featured several of the long. multi-part compositions that would become hallmarks of these prog rock pioneers. But when they put what they had on tape, they realized they had enough time on the LP for one more song. Enter Greg Lake and a song he had written when he was just 12 years old.
Feeling “Lucky”
Lake wrote “Lucky Man” as a preteen not long after receiving his first guitar. When he played it for the other two men, their responses were less than enthusiastic. In fact, Keith Emerson headed out of the studio to get a few drinks because he couldn’t figure out how his keyboard work would be needed.
While Emerson was gone, Lake built the track up piece by piece via overdubs. When Emerson returned, he was stunned by how Lake had transformed the song in the studio. The trio agreed that Emerson should add a solo on a Moog synthesizer that he had recently received.
Emerson thought that the first take of his solo would be replaced, so he was basically experimenting with the instrument to see how the notes would bend. But Lake and Palmer convinced him that the take was perfect. “Lucky Man” was ready for classic rock immortality.
Behind the Lyrics of “Lucky Man”
For a song written by a kid, “Lucky Man” gets exceedingly deep and takes a somber turn. The chorus of “Ooh what a lucky man he was” seems perfectly apropos for the first couple of verses. We find out the protagonist is popular with the ladies and rich, as evidenced by a bed with “white lace and feathers” and “a gold-covered mattress.”
Despite all these creature comforts, he longs for glory, which is why he goes off to fight for his country. But in the final verse, he’s felled by a bullet in battle. “No money could save him,” Lake intones. “So he laid down and he died.” When that refrain comes around again, it’s rich with bittersweet irony.
“Lucky Man” gave Emerson, Lake & Palmer a track with which they could court FM radio. And it established their cred as progressive trailblazers thanks to Emerson’s swerving synths. The lesson here for songwriters is that you shouldn’t ever discard your earliest work. You might just have a hidden classic lying around waiting to be unearthed.
Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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