After 28-years of service the French electronic music duo, Daft Punk has decided to hang up their masks. The duo has been known to produce some of the most iconic electronic and techno music tracks of all time, and their track “One More Time” is honored on Rolling Stone magazine’s ‘500 Greatest Songs of All Time‘ list. Today, however, we are talking about an equally iconic track “Get Lucky.”
“Get Lucky” was released as the lead single off of Daft Punk’s fourth studio album ‘Random Access Memories’ on April 19, 2013. The song is also a collaboration with legendary musicians Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.
The song was a massive success all over the world. It reached the #1 spot on music charts in 32 countries in the world including the UK, South Africa, France, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, Norway, Italy, and more. It also reached #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100. However, the song has its highest sales in the US, an estimate of 3.4 million copies, followed by 1.4 million copies in the UK. Worldwide, the song has sold over 9 million copies.
The highest honor for “Get Lucky” was, however, receiving awards for ‘Record of the Year’ and ‘Best Pop Duo/Group Performance’ at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards.
Watch “Get Lucky” Video by Daft Punk Ft. Pharrell Williams & Nile Rodgers
“Get Lucky” Lyrics Meaning and Song Review
“Get Lucky” is a highly repetitive song, as is the nature of most Daft Punk tracks. However, this is one repetitive song you can keep jamming to all 6 minutes.
Talking about the song, Pharrell Williams revealed the idea behind “Get Lucky”;
Getting lucky is not just sleeping with her, but meeting someone for the first time and it just clicking. There’s no better fortune in this existence, to me.
Verse 1
Pharrell Williams brings in some interesting metaphors to talk about love or that initial spark between a brand new couple.
‘The legend of the phoenix’ is a reference to Greek mythology where the mythic and majestic creature phoenix is mentioned. The phoenix bird is said to be reborn from its own ashes after it burns to a crisp after it dies.
Through this reference, Pharrell Williams talks about the circle of life, love, and everything else. The world has a strange way of operating in cycles, repeating, and continuing. He links this idea with the universe by mentioning the spinning planets revolving around the Sun. However, the answer to his metaphorical question of “What keeps the planet spinning?” is love!
What/who set the whole world/universe in motion? No one knows. These are questions better left unsolved. However, we all have one person who can set our heart in motion.
Pre-chorus
While these lyrics hint at the theme of love and relationships that run through the song, they also celebrate life in general.
We’ve come too far
To give up who we are
In these lyrics, ‘we’ could be all of us. Pharrell is making a statement for all of us, to motivate us and uplift our spirits. These lines celebrate everything we have achieved as individuals in life thus far. Just surviving along, in this cruel, wicked world, is cause enough for celebration. And if you did that without hurting anyone else, you are a true champion of life. Everything we do, on a daily basis, is an investment to better ourselves. So, today is not the day to give up on ourselves after so much time and effort invested in ourselves. Keep pushing forward, soldiers!
These lines also can be related to relationships. Pharrell is saying that the couple has invested time and effort in each other so much that it’s never the time to give up on the relationship.
‘Raising the bar’ is a metaphor for challenging yourself to be better continuously. The bar sets the standard. ‘Raising the cups’ resembles a toast–a celebration of everything we have accomplished so far.
Chorus
The chorus of the song follows a theme of romance and sex. ‘Get lucky’ is slang for having sex. The lyrics suggest that both partners have perfect chemistry between them and they are up all night to get some action.
We’re up all night to get lucky
If we want to take these lyrics one step further, we can tie it up to the ‘secondary’ theme of the song; celebration of life. Staying up all night suggests the grind; the effort. Most would consider very successful people to be ‘lucky.’ However, ‘luck’ is not coincidental. ‘Luck’ is a result of 90% extreme hard work and work ethic. The balance of 10% can be credited to pure ‘luck.’ So, if one puts their time to their work, sleepless nights, they could really get ‘lucky’ in life.
Verse 2
There is some simple wordplay in the lyrics in the second verse of “Get Lucky.” Pharrell talks about the gift that has no ribbon on it; present. The present is also the term used to describe ‘now.’ Along with the theme of romance and sex, Pharrell Williams is really enjoying his time with this girl right now in this moment. For one; he enjoys spending time with her, also; he is about to or having sex with her right now. So, even though this ‘present’ has no ribbon, he is quite content with his time with her.
Now comes several minutes of repeated chorus and pre-chorus until the song comes to an end. The repetitions could have gone forever, and we would have still danced all throughout. This is why this song is such an iconic electro-dance track by Daft Punk.
Let us hear your thoughts on this track in the comments below. Check out the complete lyrics on Genius.
And, farewell Daft Punk. You will surely be missed…!