Zachary Lucky – Midwestern
Out on 18th October 2019
Resisting the temptation to say he was clearly born Lucky, the Saskatchewan-born singer-songwriter Zachary Lucky spent much of his youth on the road, never putting down roots, a period in his life encapsulated in Guy Clark-echoing opening track There Was A Time When I Used to Run (“Always searching for the exit sign – on each and every door”), a simple dobro strummed number which, shaded by fiddle, reveals a husky, lived-in baritone sounding a lot older than his 30 years.
These days, however, he’s back home in Saskatoon, married with daughters, an unexpected turn of events given voice on the pedal-steel backed Del Barber co-write Didn’t Know You’d Come Along as he reflects “Your momma always thought I’d never settle down/There’s a baby in your belly and my money’s all spent/Days and months I wonder where it all went/Now I work like my daddy five days a week…I’m sweeping up the kitchen feeling right as rain/Not a hell of a lot that I would change”.
As such, the album speaks of his desire for a simpler, rural life and “a little peace and quiet” on songs such as the slow waltzing Back to the Country, in tandem with which there’s several songs reflecting on time passing and childhood.
The former can be found with the mortality-themed slow sway, resonator-guitar coloured Moments In Time (“I wonder where they go/All these memories like photographs/How they fade so quickly/And the colours never seem to last”) as he sings “Now you’re looking through your father’s eyes/I wonder how it’ll be/When my time comes to pass”. Meanwhile, the latter takes shape on the lap-steel backed Sunday Morning At The Dragstrip with its memories of time spent with his father (“I remember Sunday morning/ Like it was yesterday/Me and my dad headed south to the track/Down the number 11 highway”).
Indeed, his father features in another track, the Prine-like mid-tempo jog of strummed No Shame In Working Hard (“My daddy he’s been working nearly ever day/And I still remember how he use to say/Meat in the freezer’s like money in the bank”), a song that spreads out to become a celebration of doing a honest day’s blue-collar work (“Seen most of my buddies go to school/Buying up the houses with the swimming pools/I’d rather live here like the poor folks do”).
This, in turn, prompts his own thoughts on the responsibilities of being a father with, written from the point of view of his kid, Rock and Roll Dad (“He played shows all across this country…Says he knows every town and diner/And Every AM station between…Now he’s working nine to five/He does the best that he can/Its get the kids out the front door/Get to work by 9AM”).
The folksy fingerpicked Revelation Blues takes something of thematic detour for what unfolds as a jaunty climate change commentary as he sings how “the end times are coming” and how the ice caps are melting “and there’s flooding in the streets” while we just stare at our phones and say “but the skies are still blue” and the authorities tell us “Don’t worry boys/We’re all just hoping for the best”.
It ends, though, back with a rock n roll dad’s lament in the Prine-influenced waltzing duet with co-writer Richard Inman, Sometimes I Wonder (How I Got This Far), thinking of his family back home while he’s playing to an empty bar or “stuck on this interstate highway” as “The full bottles all turn to empty/The Western sunset turns to night” consoling himself in the fact that “At least I know I’m not the only/Song singer who’s alone tonight”.
Old school folk and country, sung from the heart with sentiments to which everyone can relate. Dare I say it, you should get Lucky.