As I wrote in my previous entry Lucky Town, reflecting on the dual album – Human Touch / Lucky Town ‘The more stripped down, folk-based sound on the Lucky Town record is my preferred of the two and contains many excellent songs‘.
Today’s featured track ‘My Beautiful Reward’ is one such song that compared to some songs which didn’t make it as studio releases. My Beautiful Reward and With Every Wish (from Human Touch) are the ones that didn’t get away. Never mind, the ones that did get away like Happy and Loose Change. They have been presented here in all the glory I could muster. They ain’t going anywhere!
My Beautiful Reward
[Verse]
Well I sought gold and diamond rings
My own drug to ease the pain that living brings
Walked from the mountain to the valley floor
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward
[Verse]
From a house on a hill, a sacred light shines
I walk through these rooms, but none of them are mine
Down empty hallways, I went from door to door
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward
[Verse]
Well your hair shone in the sun
I was so high, I was the lucky one
Then I came crashing down like a drunk on a barroom floor
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward
Lucky Town is the tenth studio album by Bruce Springsteen. The album was released on March 31, 1992, the same day as Springsteen’s Human Touch album. I agree with the The Chicago Tribune who wrote that Lucky Town was “highly underrated…containing some of the strongest songwriting of Springsteen’s career and ranks as one of his most completely realized albums.” It focuses on more specific events in Springsteen’s life.
This song My Beautiful Reward is about the journey of life….trying to find that thing, that place, that person that will make you entirely happy…. albeit hopefully one day. My Beautiful Reward is another way of saying eternal reward or Heaven. We go through life looking for satisfaction from material things, but it never works. (“my own drug to ease the pain that living brings“).
The man knows, through experience in verse 1 – that fulfillment can’t be found in material things. He seems to have come up empty with religion in verse 2. In verse 3 he finds that romantic love is not the ultimate fulfillment either. Verse 4 simply shows a guy who hasn’t given up on the search. And so the cycle continues.
Searching for my beautiful reward
Reference:
1. Lucky Town – Wikipedia
2. Lucky Town (Song) – Wikipedia










