BRUCE COCKBURN: THE GIFT

Bruce Cockburn‘s music has been part of my life for quite some time now. When Kathy and I got married, among the music we chose for our ceremony was a Cockburn song and it is the one song that we would still choose today. After twelve years of marriage, his song still reflects our life together. Bruce’s love songs are tender but mature, and never flinch from the realities of relationships. And with Cockburn’s latest album, Dart to the Heart, we have a whole new batch of songs to live the rest of our lives with. These songs aim for the heart and hit their target. The album could be described as a collection of heart songs, though not all of them are necessarily love songs. It is true that many of the songs are about love but on closer listening there are a few songs on the collection that are about how the harshness of the world affects the heart. This is familiar territory for Cockburn since much of his work over the past decade has been political in nature. His new songs focus on personal crisis rather than global conflicts though. For example, “Southland of the Heart” is a song of comfort to someone in the midst of hard times:

When the wild-eyed dogs of day to day come snapping at your heels
And there’s so much coming at you that you don’t know how to feel
When they’ve taken all your money and then come back for your clothes
When your hands are full of thorns but you can’t quit groping for the rose

In the southland of the heart
Where night blooms perfume the breeze
Lie down
Take your rest with me

I first heard this song shortly after I learned of a friend’s rough times and now whenever I hear it I think of her. This might also have something to do with the fact that the country-tinged tune sounds very much like something Gram Parsons might have written. Anyway, whether you are experiencing the joy or pain of life, Dart to the Heart is a generous gift from a long time friend.

I feel Cockburn is like an old friend who sends postcards every once in a while via his albums, and sometimes comes around in person to visit my particular corner of the world whenever he tours. I was lucky enough to be able to see several of his shows last year and was impressed and surprised by what I heard. Bruce has made his past jazz influences a little less obvious and has pointed his sound towards a more guitar and organ driven r&b style. This sound was explored on his Nothing But a Burning Light album but is fully realized on Dart to the Heart and in concert with his current touring band. Bruce has played with exceptional musicians in the past but his current band seem a bit looser and more comfortable on stage than ever before. What especially sticks in my mind about the latest shows is the keyboard player reeling one soulful organ lick after the other and Cockburn and the rest of the band smiling and laughing in response. It was great fun to watch such playfulness among the musicians as they performed.

As wonderful as this new musical direction is, I was reminded what a marvelous solo performer Bruce is when I received another generous gift recently. A friend of mine sent me a tape of a recent gig that Cockburn played at a small guitar shop named McCabe’s in Los Angeles. I saw a similar solo show in Seattle in 1988 but even that superb concert doesn’t compare with the intimacy of the McCabe’s tape. The tape has a living room ambiance to it. It honestly feels as if Bruce Cockburn is performing in the room right in front of you. The McCabe’s show begins with what could be regarded as the touchstone of his musical career. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” is also the opening song of the Stealing Fire album, one of Cockburn’s first albums to concentrate on political matters, and is about appreciating the good things in life despite all the sadness and cruelty that it also has to offer.

Don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open your eyes
One day you’re waiting for the sky to fall
The next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time

Much of Cockburn’s work prior to this was of a spiritual nature. He expressed his Christian beliefs in his songs, but he did so with a quiet subtlety. Many of these early songs are beautiful. “Lord of the Starfields”, included in the McCabe’s performance, is particularly awe-inspiring. Cockburn did a lot of traveling around the world and what he saw and heard seemed to open his eyes and heart up to the people he saw crushed by war and oppression by governments. His visits to Nicaragua and Tibet especially affected him and changed his world view. Much of what he experienced saddened and angered him but it only toughened up his music. “Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight,” Cockburn says in “Dangerous Times,” “Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight.” I couldn’t think of a more brilliant description of what he has done with much of his recent work. Just kicking at that darkness.

The kicking makes for some powerful music making. In “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”, a victim of war feels so helpless and weary that they wish for the very weapon that is causing so much pain, so that they can strike back at the unreachable enemy. You really feel the rage of someone trapped by the madness of a military conflict (a conflict that the U.S. government has perpetuated in Central America in fact). Not exactly easy listening material. Although “Rocket Launcher” is one of Cockburn’s most popular songs, for a while he had to refrain from playing it in concert. It took too much out of him to raise that amount of anger night after night. The song was played at McCabe’s and at other recent shows, so Bruce must have made some sort of peace with it.

One of the more personal songs on his latest album is “Closer to the Light”, where he turns the darkness into light. The song is about the death of a fellow songwriter that Bruce greatly admired. From what I remember him saying at the concerts that I saw (I can’t quite make out what he says on the tape), Bruce usually accepts that a life naturally comes to a conclusion. But even though apparently Cockburn never met this man (“Never got to know you/Suddenly you’re out of here”), his death seems to have profoundly affected him. Maybe it’s because when someone enters your life through music, a special bond is formed between performer and listener. Great music can resonate throughout a listener’s life, reflecting or perhaps enhancing emotions and experiences. I know I felt an acute sense of loss when John Lennon died though I never met him. But his music was (and still is) such a big part of my life that I felt that I had known him. With “Closer to the Light”, Bruce Cockburn zeroes in on these feelings and, in turn, does exactly what the admired artist’s music has done for him: By revealing his sorrow through his work, the listener can identify with Cockburn and feel like they have known him all along. Like a friend. He confronts his feelings about death and uses them to create a closeness, a kinship with the listener.

Part of what makes Cockburn such a powerful songwriter is that his lyrics often compare feelings and emotions with tangible actions and objects. In “Bone In My Ear” on both Dart to the Heart and the McCabe’s performance, he equates being in love with someone with the physical act of an ear hearing a sound.

There’s a bone in my ear
Keeps singing your name
Sometimes it’s like pleasure
Sometimes it’s like pain
It’s a small voice and quiet
But I hear it plain
There’s a bone in my ear
Keeps singing your name

Wonderfully effective words to put to an aural pleasure such as music, don’t you think?

Another pleasure to hear is Cockburn’s excellent guitar playing, which is especially evident on the McCabe’s tape. He has a unique style of finger picking that mixes elements of jazz, blues and rock. The first time I saw Cockburn in concert, I was amazed at his musicianship. The show was part of a tour to back up his then current album World of Wonders (still one of my favorites), which is slightly more rock ‘n’ roll oriented than some of his other albums. He played a guitar solo at the end of “They Call It Democracy” that was as biting as the lyrics and made the solo on the album version sound like a throwaway. It kept building in intensity. I had to shake my head in amazement. I had expected a quiet, folky show. I never expected to hear some powerful rock ‘n’ roll guitar playing. It was the solo performance that I saw the next year that showed me the quieter and more versatile side of Cockburn’s playing. To hold an audience’s interest for nearly two hours with just a voice and a guitar isn’t easy but Bruce Cockburn is one of those exceptional performers that can pull it off and it has a lot to do with his mastery of the guitar. You can hear this in the McCabe’s performance and on the two solo instrumental pieces on the new album. One is called “Sunrise On the Mississippi” which combines the dusty, mysterious sound of the Delta blues with Cockburn’s characteristically jazzy riffs, the notes bouncing around like sunlight off the ripples of the Mississippi river. Just one man, one guitar, opening up a whole landscape in your head.

So Bruce Cockburn has a gift for you if you want it. Next time he comes to your town, go hear him play and he’ll give it to you. Or pick up Dart to the Heart or one of his many other albums (I think he has something like thirty of them out now). His music can help express your love, share your grief, open your eyes to some of the injustices in the world and of course make the bones in your ears sing. What other gift can do all this?

JULY 1995