Richard Ashcroft on his most “definitive” song

Posted On October 27, 2024October 27, 2024

Whether it’s on his own or with his group, The Verve, Richard Ashcroft has written some of the most iconic songs of the modern rock era. On tracks like ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’, ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ and ‘A Song for the Lovers’, Ashcroft always strikes a fine balance between lush, orchestral strings and more conventional rock instruments. Highly evocative ballads, rich in sound and poetic imagery, these are some of the most enduring songs in the recent musical canon.

Beyond that, Ashcroft seems to represent something—he’s in a rare legion of British soul. And within that rare sphere of culture, he picks out one piece of his own work, as his most definitive offering to date.

In a 2018 interview with Carl Wiser for Songfacts, Ashcroft said that “the definitive Richard Ashcroft song will be when the cream of a particular emotion or a particular scenario in the human condition plays out, and that song mirrors it.”

Name-checking a song from The Verve’s third album, 1997’s Urban Hymns, Ashcroft added, “So, if it happens to be ‘Lucky Man’ for that feeling of transcendence, of liberty within yourself, your body, your partner in life, you can actually fleetingly feel that moment and you want to put it in a bottle. And that’s what music’s about. It should be about capturing those moments for yourself and then the listener can put it on over and over again, if they want.”

Another one of his songs which strikes a blend between a blue-eyed soul style electric guitar, acoustic rhythms and washes of heavenly strings, ‘Lucky Man’ definitely does capture that feeling of transcendence, liberty and freedom. You’d be a very lucky man to even write one song this good, let alone to be able to do it over and over again.

Speaking about the song a year previously, Ashcroft again singled it out among the many fine songwriting credits in his catalogue, telling Q Magazine that ‘Lucky Man’ is his favourite song that he’s ever written. Explaining that it “seems to be able to ignite or connect with an energy every time it’s performed, without fail“.

He added, “I’ll have to be on death’s door not to be able to connect to the energy with the audience and that’s something special. It’s a rarity to express that feeling, to try and seize that moment when you’re on top of the world and you’re stood there naked, smiling, like it says“.

Ashcroft is not alone in his love for the track. When it was released as the third single from the Urban Hymns album, it rose to seventh in the charts. With 202 performances and counting, it is his most frequently played song in concert, which makes the fact that he feels it always connects with his audience an even more impressive feat.

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