"Better Things" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song I really love, by an artist I haven't featured in the previous This Year or Portions For Foxes series. See the introduction for more.
Social Distortion started out as a punk band. They were one of the stalwarts of early LA hardcore. But, by the time I was listening to them more regularly in the '90s, they were much more like a mainstream hard-rock band. (And, still, when I think "hardcore," it's bands like Suicidal Tendencies and maybe Dead Kennedys.)
Don't get me wrong: they rocked. And they rocked in an era when rock was getting to be outdated and niche. (See the video for this song, below - they were already leaning into a retro, vaguely '50s look in 1992.)
This slot almost went to Story of My Life or I Was Wrong, but, instead, I went to the song that isn't about singer Mike Ness talking about himself: Bad Luck.
The song doesn't explain the exact why of it, but Ness is singing to some guy for whom everything goes wrong, and we think it's because of his attitude:
No one really knows the reason why.
And the song is straightforward from there: this guy has bad luck, in all of the ways, and we run through the traditional three verses of details, with a great chorus (Social Distortion was always ready, willing, and entirely able to raise the roof) in between. It's not super-deep, it's not intricate, it's not a puzzle - this guy gets in his own way, no matter what he does, and we're watching him and shaking our heads.
It makes a great song, and maybe even a lesson for our own lives, if we can figure out how not to be this guy ourselves.
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