Released January 5, 1987 Recorded 1986 Length 3:33 | Format 7" single Genre Rock | |
B-side "The Heart of Rock & Roll" (Live) | ||
"Jacob's Ladder" is a 1986 song written by Bruce Hornsby and his brother John Hornsby and recorded by Huey Lewis and the News. It became a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987, the band's third.
Set in Birmingham, Alabama, the song marries the Biblical image of Jacob's Ladder to someone who rejects proselytizing evangelists 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 to his friend Lewis, and it appeared on the group's September 1986 album Fore!. It was the third single released from the album, and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for a week in March 1987.
A music video was filmed of the band performing the song in a live concert.
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.