'Lucky Enough' By Zach Bryan - Lyrics & Meaning

With recording for the album beginning at the famous Electric Lady Studios in New York in February 2024, Zach, alongside Jake Weinberg, Gabe Wax, Jacquire King and Dawson March, proceeded to record the album during Zach's Quittin' Time Tour.

According to Weinberg, through a post on social media, the group ended up "spending a few months on tour, setting up our makeshift studio in locker rooms, hotels, and houses across the country, with the whole gang recording in various places on the offime".

First heard upon release of his fifth studio album The Great American Bar Scene on July 4th, 'Lucky Enough' is the first track on the 19-song collection, and the only poem to appear on the record.

As he did with 'Fear and Friday's', the opener of his self-titled fourth studio album, Bryan begins The Great American Bar Scene with a spoken word poem.

Entitled 'Lucky Enough', the song and album are birthed under bright, gentle strums of acoustic guitar and aching, yearning fiddle playing.

Bryan's spoken voice is quick and undiluted - quippy and skipping on marked words and purposeful in each couplet's phrasing. By the end, Bryan's voice is dry and rasping, almost to a whisper as he enunciates one final mention of "The Great American Bar Scene".

Again, much like another fan favourite of Bryan's, 2022's 'Burn Burn Burn', Bryan is exploring and acknowledging not only things he wishes to happen but, one day when he comes to pass, things that he hopes he has achieved. 'Lucky Enough' is a present and grateful yearning for fulfilment, and a definitive statement as the opening track of The Great American Bar Scene.

I’ll have some kids and teach them that we are all the same
Sufferin’, smilin’, silhouettes of every passin’ day
And the love I have will always be something my friends yearn
That memories were never cheap and never easy earned

Bryan has developed one of the grittiest yet realistic philosophies for life through his songwriting. One thing that he's never lost within the suffering and learning in life is hope - as he mentions here. One day, he'll teach his children that we're all trying to find our place in this world, will go through peaks and troughs and none of the best things to happen to you fall into your lap.

If I’m lucky enough ill understand losing someone close
Ill clench my teeth on New Year’s Eve and try to talk to ghosts
I’ll stumble through a market on a summer day in June
Smell the salt and asphalt on Sunday afternoon
I reckon I’d be lucky if i made it half as far

Bryan understands that, to have truly lived and become whole as a person, we have to go through the hardest, toughest challenges in life, as well as the greatest days we can imagine. Missing loved ones will never become easier, and we'll be lucky to have felt grief, as to learn to get through it is one of the bravest of tasks.

As with so much of Bryan's songwriting, his descriptive and vivid imagery is what we gain most from - the sort where you can picture yourself in the moment, be able to smell and taste a memory from years past and immediately return to it, taking comfort or learning something about ourselves from it.

If I’m lucky enough I will get through hard things
And they will make me gentle to the ways of the world
If I’m lucky enough I’ll have the courage to leave and go
Wherever my healthy beatin’ heart tells me to go

'Lucky Enough', much like 'Burn Burn Burn', uses distinct and purposeful coupling to differentiate between thought-provoking aspirations and feet on the ground awareness. It gives us a glimpse into Bryan's convictions, allowing us to comprehend his plain-spoken credence while also getting lost in a memory he induces within us.

If I’m lucky enough I’ll see fogs lift with suns as we roll to play a show
In Carolina, Oklahoma or Chicago
Ill grow to know the road to home in places far as way
Wrinkled, bald and beat to shit, to never waste a day

Bryan hasn't offered up any specific words about 'Lucky Enough'; however, when sharing the preface to The Great American Bar Scene, the artist delved into how his upcoming record came to be.

He writes: “The making of this album tested me and everyone close to me. It drove me to my ends and my beginnings. I saw the lights of Paris after saying I would for ten years, rode the coast of Australia with a beautiful woman, was locked in a pub until 7am in Ireland, walked my favorite street in New York over a hundred times, thought I was going to bleed out in a field in Tennessee, spent a few hours in handcuffs, hugged my grandma more than a few times, layed in the grass of my mother's hometown, sang ‘State Trooper’ in a bar South of Boston and wrote something that I think was important. I wrote and produced all of these with the help of some truly great friends. I finally felt like I's making music again. If you don't like it I assume it's not intended for you. Grab your beers through tears and fears, ‘the Great American Bar Scene’”.

If I’m lucky enough
I’ll see fogs lift with suns as we roll
To play a show In Carolina, Oklahoma or Chicago
I’ll grow to know the road to home in places far away
Wrinkled, bald and beat to shit, to never waste a day
Enough people will hate me that I know I did it right
But to never meet a human to say that I don’t like
Let me learn the hard way and cut it close some times
That use the attic chest where every lesson lies
I’ll have some kids and teach them that we are all the same
Sufferin’, smilin’, silhouettes of every passin’ day
And the love I have will always be something my friends yearn
That memories were never cheap and never easy earned
I hope to choke on jack and coke in a bar during a northern winter
On a night the man was tight and right as rooftop lights flicker
If I’m lucky enough ill understand losing someone close
Ill clench my teeth on New Year’s Eve and try to talk to ghosts
I’ll stumble through a market on a summer day in June
Smell the salt and asphalt on Sunday afternoon
I reckon I’d be lucky if i made it half as far
To only die as on hills that are closest to my heart
If I’m lucky enough notebooks will be strewn across my room
Play catch in the backyard on a Monday afternoon
If I’m lucky enough ill tell the truth every chance I get
‘Cuz smiles faked to appease another is worth ten regrets
If I’m lucky enough I will get through hard things
And they will make me gentle to the ways of the world
If I’m lucky enough I’ll have the courage to leave and go
Wherever my healthy beatin’ heart tells me to go
If I’m lucky enough I’ll get high and invite a guitarist over
And he’ll play sweet notes until a New York City’s rooftop sunrises
If I’m lucky enough I’ll meet some kids in school that
still know how to play instruments
If I’m lucky enough I’ll see fogs lift with suns as we roll to play a show
In Carolina, Oklahoma or Chicago
Ill grow to know the road to home in places far as way
Wrinkled, bald and beat to shit, to never waste a day

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