Emerson, Lake & Palmer – "Lucky Man" (1970)

He had white horses

And ladies by the score . . .

Ooooh, what a lucky man he was!

Life was going pretty darn good for the subject of “Lucky Man” for the first three verses of the song.  But things took a nasty turn for him in verse number four:

A bullet had found him

His blood ran as he cried

No money could save him

So he laid down and he died

Oooh, what a lucky man he wasn’t . . . making this the perfect record for a Friday the 13th.

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Greg Lake – who was a member of King Crimson (the numero uno prog-rock group of all time) before leaving to help form Emerson, Lake & Palmer in 1970 – wrote “Lucky Man” when he was 12 years old.  Emerson and Palmer weren’t crazy at first about making it the last track on the group’s debut album, but eventually came around to the idea.

Were you a little surprised to learn that our hero died of a bullet wound?  I was.  With all that stuff about white horses, and satin-clad ladies, and a gold-covered mattress (which doesn’t actually sound all that comfortable), and his countrymen singing his praises, I would have thought he was living in time when swords – not guns – were the weapon of choice.

Click here to listen to “Lucky Man,” which is one of the first rock records to feature a Moog synthesizer.  (Keyboardist Keith Emerson’s knocked it out of the park with his Moog solo at the end of the track – which he pulled off in one take.)

Click here to buy “Lucky Man” from Amazon.