"Jacob's Ladder" is a song written by Bruce Hornsby and his brother John Hornsby and recorded by American rock band Huey Lewis and the News. The song spent one week at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1987, becoming the band's third and final number-one hit.
Set in Birmingham, Alabama, the song marries the Biblical image of Jacob's Ladder to someone who rejects proselytizingevangelists (first, an obese street preacher, followed by a televangelist claiming to need money or be forced off the airwaves) and is instead struggling to get through life one day at a time:
Step by step, one by one, higher and higher Step by step, rung by rung, climbing Jacob's ladder.
The song was given by Hornsby[clarification needed] to his friend Lewis and it appeared on the group's 1986 album Fore!. The song was originally meant for an album for Hornsby that Lewis was producing.[1] Hornsby did not like the version his band played but suggested that Lewis play it that way for his upcoming album.[1] It was the third single released from the album, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a week in March 1987.[2]
Critical reception
Billboard magazine wrote that the song is "insightful" and "wrestles with spiritual issues."[3]Cash Box praised the "soaring chorus" and "powerful arrangement."[4]
Music video
A music video was filmed of the band performing the song in a live concert shot at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena on December 31, 1986.[citation needed]
Later versions
Bruce Hornsby later recorded his own rendition of the song for his 1988 album, Scenes from the Southside. It became part of his concert repertoire as well; a live bluegrass-influenced version (very different from the version on Scenes from the Southside) appears on the 2006 album Intersections (1985–2005), which Hornsby performed with his brother John.
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