'Unlucky Strikes' by Gavin Adcock – Lyrics & Meaning

From his mournful 2023 ballad 'A Cigarette' to his prowling ditty 'Need To', released a few weeks ago, Gavin Adcock has cast himself as a down-and-out figure in today's country music.

In these early moments of his fledgling career, it's a role – an act spent searching for answers at the bottom of bottles and at the end of reckless fun – he has played well.

His latest single, 'Unlucky Strikes', finds him taking up that mantle once more, taking a drag from the dart of misfortune and exhaling the bleakest of circumstances.

In the beginning, 'Unlucky Strikes' sounds exactly as it should, the song a ho-hum opus for the bitter moments it explores. Born from a shuffling of strings, the hard luck tune lacks the immediate energy of an Adcock anthem, but where it comes up short, it makes up for in unbridled emotion.

After an opening round of the chorus, the song crackles to life with the groan of electric guitar and the pounding of a hearty beat. From there, 'Unlucky Strikes' trades between the two musical extremes, the song, at one moment, a down-and-out ditty, and a stadium-ready banger the next.

"My dog got run over
My credit got stole
Grandpa’s moving slower
Ex girl's on the pole
Been rolling snake eyes
Man, something ain’t right
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes"

'Unlucky Strikes' finds Adcock in the midst of a bad day. A very bad day. It's awful enough that his dog was hit by a vehicle, but on top of that, he's dealing with a stolen identity, an ailing grandparent, and he's on the outs with a former lover.

It seems like the cards have been stacked against him, and maybe today, they really are.

He sings: "This whole world’s been keeping me down / Like a tin can I’ve been kicked around." No matter what, the artist can't seem to win for losing. The vices he would normally turn to – he sings: "Thought that the nicotine would help" – don't appear to be working either, adding "But I think it’s putting me through hell."

"Slide me that bottle of brown
Cause the bad times’s done took me to town
Sitting here at the top of rock bottom
But hell, smoke em if you got em"

He soon turns to the whiskey, attempting to catch a glimmer of hope at the end of a buzz, but still, he finds himself at rock bottom. His dog's not coming back, his credit is fucked and his grandfather isn't getting any younger.

He's currently toking on the cigarette of misfortune, and yet, he sings: "smoke em if you got em."

"Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes..."

My dog got run over
My credit got stole
Grandpa’s moving slower
Ex girl's on the pole
Been rolling snake eyes
Man, something ain’t right
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes

This whole world’s been keeping me down
Like a tin can I’ve been kicked around
Thought that the nicotine would help
But I think it’s putting me through hell

My dog got run over
My credit got stole
Grandpa’s moving slower
Ex girl's on the pole
Been rolling snake eyes
Man, something ain’t right
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes

Slide me that bottle of brown
Cause the bad times’s done took me to town
Sitting here at the top of rock bottom
But hell, smoke em if you got em

My dog got run over
My credit got stole
Grandpa’s moving slower
Ex girl's on the pole
Been rolling snake eyes
Man, something ain’t right
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes
These unlucky strikes

My dog got run over
My credit got stole
Grandpa’s moving slower
Ex girl's on the pole
Been rolling snake eyes
Man, something ain’t right
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes
Guess I’ve been smoking and toking on
Unlucky Strikes

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For more on Gavin Adcock, see below: