Another important theme to this album, which should be clear from the title, is dreams. Part of that is a simple play on sayings like “girl of your dreams” or “dreamboat”, but more directly it stems from the fact that I have been blessed by more than a few songs coming to me in a dream. “Both Got Lucky” played in my sleeping head as a fully formed verse, and I actually remember in the dream thinking, this sounds a lot like Steve Earle (specifically, “I Ain’t Ever Satisfied”), although the actual finished verse might be a little more suggestive of “Summertime Blues.”
The key to capturing a dream song is to get it down as soon as you wake up, or it will disappear quickly, never to be recalled. And it helps to take it somewhere else right away, as I did here when I plowed through from the dreamed verse to a pre-chorus and then chorus that spawned the phrase “We both got lucky.” Since I wrote the chorus consciously, that is obviously the significant point of the song – any good relationship is reciprocal. The somewhat crass expression “Get lucky” (all due respect to Loverboy and Daft Punk) is expanded and enriched to include both parties as subject, not object. This is how it feels to be truly in love with someone, so lucky to have found one another and fit so well.
I had also heard the call-and-response vocals in my dream, and made that a key feature, flipping back and forth between the lead vocal and answering harmonies. The lyrics I wrote awake hark back to the song’s origins: “Like I was dreaming and you made it real” and one of the final lines, “Woke up and realized that I’m happy.” There is another form of reciprocity between dreams and reality – both contribute to a unified whole in life.
We Both Got Lucky
I want to tell you how you make me feel
(feel about you)
Like I was dreaming and you made it real
(dreaming of you)
There were times when I had to wonder aloud
(just how did I find you?)
Your answer came smiling without a sound
You’ve been in my heart and I’ve been in yours
(through & thru)
From highest mountains to faraway shores
(we have flown to)
Our location has mattered no more than that
(now that I’ve found you)
Where we are is the only place it’s at
We both got lucky
That’s the size of it, the most that I can say
Looks like we’ve made it
That’s a testament to both of our good taste
Couldn’t imagine how we came to be
(how you’d feel too)
Woke up and realized that I’m happy
(now that it’s true)
And it’s all come from having you in my life
(Now that I’ve found you)
Our prospects have never looked so bright...
We both got lucky
That’s the size of it, the most that I can say
Looks like we’ve made it
That’s a testament to both of our good taste (x2)