shadow
BRUCE COCKBURN > Albums
Bruce Cockburn - Waiting For A Miracle - 1987

Waiting For A Miracle

Bruce Cockburn - Waiting For A Miracle - 1987
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987 (2 cd)

RELEASE DATE: 1987
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

* Denotes bonus tracks on Canadian CD version
+ New song

(Songs are linked to original album for lyrics)

Disc One:

1. Going to the Country (3:12)
2. Musical Friends* (2:54)
3. One Day I Walk (3:06)
4. It’s Going Down Slow (3:31)
5. Up on the Hillside* (3:00)
6. Feet Fall on the Road* (2:41)
7. Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse All Night Long (from the film ‘Rumours of Glory’) (6:24)
8. All the Diamonds (2:40)
9. Burn (3:50)
10. Silver Wheels (4:41)
11. I’m Gonna Fly Someday* (4:02)
12. Vagabondage* (4:20)
13. Free to Be* (2:29)
14. Laughter (3:30)
15. Wondering Where the Lions Are (3:09)
16. Tokyo (3:28)
17. Fascist Architecture (4:04)
18. The Trouble with Normal (3:17)

Disc Two:

1. Rumours of Glory (from the film ‘Rumours of Glory’) (5:02)
2. The Coldest Night of the Year (3:58)
3. Wanna Go Walking* (2:52)
4. You Pay Your Money and you Take Your Chance (4:17)
5. Tropic Moon* (4:38)
6. Candy Man’s Gone*(4:06)
7. Lovers in a Dangerous Time (4:06)
8. If I Had a Rocket Launcher (4:59)
9. Making Contact* (3:46)
10. Peggy’s Kitchen Wall (3:42)
11. People See Through You (3:44)
12. Call it Democracy(3:50)
13. See How I Miss You*(4:01)

From Tierra del Fuego to Ungava Bay
The history of betrayal continues to today
The spirit of Almighty Voice, the ghost of Anna Mae
Call like thunder from the mountains — you can hear them say
It’s a stolen land

Apartheid in Arizona, slaughter in Brazil
If bullets don’t get good PR there’s other ways to kill
Kidnap all the children, put ’em in a foreign system
Bring them up in no-man’s land where no one really wants them
It’s a stolen land

Stolen land — but it’s all we’ve got
Stolen land — and there’s no going back
Stolen land — and we’ll never forget
Stolen land — and we’re not through yet

In my mind I catch a picture — big black raven in the sky
Looking at the ocean — sail reflected in black eye —
Sail as white as heroin, white like weathered bones —
Rum and guns and smallpox gonna change the face of home
In this stolen land…

If you’re like me you’d like to think we’ve learned from our mistakes
Enough to know we can’t play god with others’ lives at stake
So now we’ve all discovered the world wasn’t only made for whites
What step are you gonna take to try and set things right
In this stolen land

Stolen land — but it’s all we’ve got
Stolen land — and there’s no going back
Stolen land — and we’ll never forget
Stolen land — and we’re not through yet

January 1986 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn – Live
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance
Rumours Of Glory – box set – disc 2
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Look at them working in the hot sun
The pilloried saints and the fallen ones
Working and waiting for the night to come
And waiting for a miracle

Somewhere out there is a place that’s cool
Where peace and balance are the rule
Working toward a future like some kind of mystic jewel
And waiting for a miracle

You rub your palm
On the grimy pane
In the hope that you can see
You stand up proud
You pretend you’re strong
In the hope that you can be
Like the ones who’ve cried
Like the ones who’ve died
Trying to set the angel in us free
While they’re waiting for a miracle

Struggle for a dollar, scuffle for a dime
Step out from the past and try to hold the line
So how come history takes such a long, long time
When you’re waiting for a miracle

You rub your palm
On the grimy pane
In the hope that you can see
You stand up proud
You pretend you’re strong
In the hope that you can be
Like the ones who’ve cried
Like the ones who’ve died
Trying to set the angel in us free
While they’re waiting for a miracle

January 1986 – Managua, Nicaragua

Written by: Bruce Cockburn and Hugh Marsh

Also On:
Anything Anytime Anywhere
Rumours Of Glory – box set – disc 3
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)



Album compilation by Bruce Cockburn and Bernie Finkelstein, with 2 new songs.

ALBUM INFO:

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn except Stolen Land which is written by Bruce Cockburn and Hugh Marsh.

All songs published by Golden Mountain Music Corp. (PRO Canada) except “Going to the Country” and “Musical Friends”, which is published by Bytown Music Ltd.( PRO Canada)

Traduction par Marcel Moussete

Album compilation by Bruce Cockburn and Bernie Finkelstein for True North Productions.

Compliation engineers: John Naslen, Gary Gray, Michael Duncan
Digital Mastering: Bob Ludwig, Masterdisk, N.Y.
Hugh Marsh appears courtesy of Duke Street Records

Cover Painting: Robert Davidson “Raven Bringing Light to the World”
Photography: George Whiteside
Design Art Direction: Bart Schoales


Bruce Cockburn - Big Circumstance - 1988 / 2005

Big Circumstance

Bruce Cockburn - Big Circumstance - 1988 / 2005
Big Circumstance 1988 / 2005

RELEASE DATE: 1988
REISSUE: 2005
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North (deluxe edition)

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing labotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam –
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills –
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who’ve lived with this for 100,000 years –
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef –
Grain eaters – methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth –
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning –
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

April 7, 1988 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 1 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

The man who twirled with rose in teeth
Has his tongue tied up in thorns
His once expanded sense of time and
Space all shot and torn
See him wander hat in hand –
“Look at me, I’m so forlorn –
Ask anyone who can recall
It’s horrible to be born!”

Big Circumstance comes looming
Like a darkly roaring train –
Rushes like a sucking wound
Across a winter plain
Recognizing neither polished shine
Nor spot nor stain –
And wherever you are on the compass rose
You’ll never be again

Left like a shadow on the step
Where the body was before –
Shipwrecked at the stable door

Big Circumstance has brought me here –
Wish it would send me home
Never was clear where home is
But it’s nothing you can own
It can’t be bought with cigarettes
Or nylons or perfume
And all the highest bidder gets
Is a voucher for a tomb

Blessed are the poor in spirit –
Blessed are the meek
For theirs shall be the kingdom
That the power mongers seek
Blessed are the dead for love
And those who cry for peace
And those who love the gift of earth –
May their gene pool increase

Left like a shadow on the step
Where the body was before –
Shipwrecked at the stable door

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Tabloids, bellowing raw delight
Hail the return of the Teutonic Knights
Inbred for purity and spoiling for a fight,
Another little puppet of the New Right

See-through dollars and mystery plagues
Varied detritus of Aquarian Age
Shutters on storefronts and shutters in the mind –
We kill ourselves to keep ourselves safe from crime.
That’s the gospel of bondage…

We’re so afraid of disorder we make it into a god
We can only placate with state security laws
Whose church consists of secret courts and wiretaps and shocks
Whose priests hold smoking guns, and whose sign is the double cross
But God must be on the side of the side that’s right
And not the right that justifies itself in terms of might –
Least of all a bunch of neo-nazis running hooded through the night
Which may be why He’s so consipicuously out of sight
Of the gospel of bondage…

You read the Bible in your special ways
You’re fond of quoting certain things it says –
Mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above
But when do we hear about forgiveness and love?

Sometimes you can hear the Spirit whispering to you,
But if God stays silent, what else can you do
Except listen to the silence? if you ever did you’d surely see
That God won’t be reduced to an ideology
Such as the gospel of bondage…

February 22, 1987 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

In front of a newborn moon pushing up its glistening dome
I kiss these departing companions – take the next step alone
I just said goodnight to the closest thing i have to home
Oh – and the night grows sharp and hollow
As a junkie’s craving vein
And I don’t feel your touch, again.

To be held in the heart of a friend is to be a king
But the magic of a lover’s touch is what makes my spirit sing
When you’re caught up in this longing all the beauties of the earth don’t mean a thing
Oh – and the night grows clear and empty
As a lake of acid rain
And I don’t feel your touch, again.

The last light of day crept away like a drunkard after gin
A hint of chanted prayer now whispers from the fresh night wind
To this shattered heart and soul held together by habit and skin
And this half-gnawed bone of apprehension
Buried in my brain
As I don’t feel your touch, again.

June 1987 – Toronto, Canada

Through rutted winding streets of Kathmandu
Dodging crowded humans cows dogs rickshaws –
Storefronts constellated pools of bluewhite
Bright against darkening walls

The butterfly sparkle in my lasered eye still seems
To hold that last shot of red sun through haze over jumbled roofs
Everything moves like slow fluid in this atmosphere
Thick as dreams
With sewage, incense, dust and fever and the smoke of brick kilns and cremations –

Tom Kelly’s bike rumbles down –
we’re going drinking on the Tibetan side of town.

Beggar with withered legs sits sideways on skateboard, grinning
There’s a joke going on somewhere but we’ll never know
Those laughing kids with hungry eyes must be in on it too
With their clinging memories of a culture crushed
By Chinese greed

Pretty young mother by the temple gate
Covers her baby’s face against diesel fumes
That look of concern – you can see it still –
Not yet masked by the hard lines of a woman’s
Struggle to survive

Hard bargains going down
When you’re living on the Tibetan side of town.

Big red Enfield Bullet lurches to a halt in the dust
Last blast of engine leaves a ringing in the ears
That fades into the rustle of bare feet and slapping sandals
And the baritone moan of long bronze trumpets
Muffled by monastery walls.

Prayer flags crack like whips in the breeze
Sending to the world – tonight the message blows east
Dark door opens to warm yellow room and there
Are these steaming jugs of hot millet beer
and I’m sucked into the scene like this liquor up
This bamboo straw

Sweet tungba sliding down –
drinking on the Tibetan side of town

March 1987 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Live -1990 / 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 5 – 2014

High above valley,
Above deep shade coloured with the calls of cuckoos,
The ring of coppersmith’s hammer high in the hiss of the wind
Wind filled with spirits and bright with the jangle of horse bells
After a crisp night crammed with stars
It’s morning

Over the scratched-up soil, scorched-earth wasted,
Long shadows lead women bearing water
I watch the sway of skirts,
Think of moist spice forests –

Too many pictures
Swirling
Vertigo
Momentum of civilizations
Threw me too far over this time-simple landscape
And I hang here
In this mountain light
A balloon blown full of darkness –
Got to let this ballast go
Got to float upward
Till I burst

Weavers’ fingers flying on the loom
Patterns shift too fast to be discerned
All these years of thinking
Ended up like this
In front of all this beauty
Understanding nothing

Rhododendrons in bloom, sharp against
Spring snow
Remind me of another time
In japanese temple –
There was a single orange blossom
At the wrong time of year –
Seemed like a sign –
When I looked again
It was gone

Weavers’ fingers flying on the loom
Patterns shift too fast to be discerned
All these years of thinking
Ended up like this in front of all this beauty
Understanding nothing

October 26, 1987 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Goons in blackface creeping in the road —
Farm family waiting for the night to explode —
Working the land in an age of terror
You come to see the moon as the bad news bearer
Down where the death squad lives

They cut down people like they cut down trees —
Chop off its head so it will stay on its knees —
The forest shrinks but the earth remains
Slash and burn and it grows again
Down where the death squad lives.

I’ve got friends trying to batter the system down
Fighting the past till the future comes round.
It’ll never be a perfect world till God declares it that way
But that don’t mean there’s nothing we can do or say
Down where the death squad lives

Like some kind of never-ending Easter passion,
From every agony a hero’s fashioned.
Around every evil there gathers love —
Bombs aren’t the only things that fall from above
Down where the death squad lives
down where the death squad lives

Sometimes I feel like there’s a padlock on my soul.
If you opened up my heart you’d find a big black hole
But when the feeling comes through, it comes through strong —
If you think there’s no difference between right and wrong
Just go down where the death squad lives

This world can be better than it is today
You can say I’m a dreamer but that’s okay
Without the could-be and the might-have-been
All you’ve got left is your fragile skin
And that ain’t worth much down where the death squad lives

January 28, 1986 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

They’re hosing down trucks at the border under a rainbow sign —
The raindrops falling on my head burn into my mind
On a hillside in the distance there’s a patch of green sunshine
Ain’t it a shame
Ain’t it a shame
About the radium rain

Everyday in the paper you can watch the numbers rise
No such event can over take us here, we’re much too wise
In the meantime don’t eat anything that grows and don’t breathe when the cars go by
Ain’t it a shame
Ain’t it a shame
About the radium rain

Big motorcycle rumbles out of the rain like some creation of mist
There’s a man on a roof with a blindfold on and a hand grenade in his fist
I walk stiff, with teeth clenched tight, filled with nostalgia for a clean wind’s kiss
Ain’t it a shame
Ain’t it a shame
About the radium rain

A flock of birds writes something on the sky in a language I can’t understand
God’s graffiti — but it don’t say why so much evil seems to land on man
When everyone I meet just wants to live and love, and get along as best they can
Ain’t it a shame
Ain’t it a shame
About the radium rain

May 8, 1986 – Cologne

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Listen to the rain on this mountain town
Listen to the night bird’s lonesome cry
listen to the scratch of pen on paper
That’s the sound of sleep denied

Hear the sleepers toss and turn
Dreaming whatever they’re dreaming of
The wind that’s clearing the heat from the air
Can’t clear my heart of these pangs of love

Pangs of love
That’s the price you pay
When you give your love
But don’t give all the way
Pangs of love
Won’t let me go —
I came so far around the world
To hear the night say
I told you so

April 9,1987 – Pakhara

These shoes have walked some strange streets
Stranger still to come —
Sometimes the prayers of strangers
Are all that keeps them from
Trying to stay static
Something even death can’t do
Everything is motion —
To the motion be true

In this cold commodity culture
Where you lay your money down
It’s hard to even notice
That all this earth is hallowed ground —
Harder still to feel it
Basic as a breath —
Love is stronger than darkness
Love is stronger than death

The gift
Keeps moving —
Never know
Where it’s going to land.
You must stand
Back and let it
Keep on changing hands

Hackles rise in anger
Heat waves rise in sex
The gift moves on regardless
Tying this world to the next
May you never tire of waiting
Never feel that life is cheap
May your life be filled with light
Except for when you’re trying to sleep

The gift
Keeps moving —
Never know
Where it’s going to land
You must stand
Back and let it
Keep on changing hands

February 9, 1988 – Toronto, Canada

You could have gone off the Bloor Street viaduct
I could have been run down in the street
You could have got botulism anytime
I could have gone overboard into the sea

Anything can happen
To put out the light,
Is it any wonder
I don’t want to say goodnight?

I could have been hit by a falling pane of glass
You could have had shark teeth write “finit”
We could have been nailed by some vigilante type
In a case of mistaken identity — obviously

Anything can happen
To put out the light
Is it any wonder
I don’t want to say goodnight?

We could have been lynched and tarred and feathered
Been on a plane that crashed in flames
Could have done the neutron melt together
But here we are just the same!

You could have been daggered in the dead of night
You could have been gassed inside your car
I could have been walking in the open fields
And been drilled through the head by a shooting star

Anything can happen
To put out the light
Is it any wonder
I don’t want to say goodnight?

December 29, 1980 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 7 – 2014

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing labotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam –
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills –
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who’ve lived with this for 100,000 years –
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef –
Grain eaters – methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth –
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning –
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

April 7, 1988 – Toronto, Canada

Acoustic Version on the 2005 remastered edition of Big Circumstance.



The result of three years of global traveling. 1989’s Big Circumstance reflects Bruce Cockburn’s heartfelt reaction to war, repression and environmental abuse.

On this album Cockburn fires off some of the most politically potent material of his career, including “If A Tree Falls,” which tackled the issue of the rain destruction.

The remastered version of Big Circumstance features a bonus track, an acoustic version of “If A Tree Falls.” Sharpened rather than dulled by the passage of time, Big Circumstance remains a powerful testament to one man’s social conscience and artistic vision.


Album Info:

People who fed, or found their way onto these songs:

e.e. cummings, Bob and Gracie Ekblad, Tom Kellyji, Brennan Manning (“Lion & Lamb”), Dan Russell and Alison Ottman, Lewis Hyde (“The Gift”), Heather MacAndrew, Ursala LeGuin (“Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight”), USC Canada, Susan Walsh, Nirmala Pokharel, the plant manager at Chernobyl…

That’s all. If anyone’s missing, thank you too. Bruce

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn
© 1988 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN)
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.
Produced by Jon Goldsmith for True North Productions
Recorded at Manta Sound, Toronto, July-August 1988.
Engineer: John Naslen
Assisted by Mike Colomby
Mastering: Bob Ludwig, Masterdisk, New York

The musicians are:
Bruce Cockburn – vocals, guitars and harmonica
Jon Goldsmith – keyboards and electric auto harp
Fergus James Marsh – stick and bass
Michael Sloski – drums and percussion
Background vocals: Judy Cade, Margaret O’Hara (appears courtesy of Virgin Records), and Mose Scarlett
Hugh Marsh – violin (appears courtesy of Duke Street Records)
Myron Schultz – clarinets

Art direction: Bart Schoales
Photography: George Whiteside


Live - 1990

Live

Bruce Cockburn Live - 1990
Bruce Cockburn-Live-1990

RELEASE DATE: 1990
REISSUE: 2002
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

1. Silver Wheels (6:11)
2. World of Wonders (4:37)
3. Rumours of Glory (6:04)
4. See How I Miss You (4:01)
5. After the Rain (3:58)
6. Call It Democracy (3:36)
7. Tibetan Side of Town (7:48)
8. Wondering Where The Lions Are (5:19)
9. Nicaragua (5:04)
10. Broken Wheel (5:01)
11. Stolen Land (3:13)
12. To Raise The Morning Star (7:47)
13. Maybe the Poet (4:18)

Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad
Other things can make you swear and curse
When you’re chewing on life’s gristle, don’t grumble — give a whistle
And this’ll help things turn out for the best, and…

Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life

If life seems jolly rotten, there’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you’re feeling in the dumps, don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle, that’s the thing, and…

Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life

Life is quite absurd, and death’s the final word
We must always face the curtain with a bow
Forget about your sin, give the audience a grin
Enjoy it — it’s your last chance anyhow, so…

Always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke it’s true
You can see it’s all a show, keep ’em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you, and…

Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the bright side of life…

Cover – Original song from the Monty Python film “Life of Brian”

[10] If I Had A Rocket Launcher (5:29)
Note: The 2002 release from Rounder Records includes the bonus track of “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” as the number 10 track, with all the rest the same.



Bruce Cockburn’s concerts are always a wonder to behold: expansive, entrancing and full of surprises. Live, recorded in August 1989, has all of those qualities in abundance.

Album Info:

Recorded live at Ontario Place, Toronto, August 14th and 15th, 1989
Live recording by: Comfort Sound Mobile, Toronto
Engineered by: John Naslen with Doug McClement
Assistant engineers: Scott Campbell, Jon Erickson
Mixed at: Manta Sound
Engineer: John Naslen
Assistant engineer: Mike Columby
Audiophile assembly: Brad Haehnel
Art Direction: Bart Schoales
Photos: Patrick Harbron

Produced by: Jon Goldsmith for True North Productions

The musicians are:
Bruce Cockburn: electric and acoustic guitars, harmonica, bodhran, windchimes and vocals
Fergus Jemison Marsh: Chapman stick, midi stick and background vocals
Michael Sloski: drums, percussion and background vocals

On the road:
Road manager: David Hart
Sound: Bob McLee (band aide services)
Lighting: Steve Hill
Monitors and guitars: Russ Ryan
Monitors: Russ Wilson
Truck: Michael Dufault
Australian sound: John Lacina
Australian Lighting: Phil Spillman

Remaster Info: 2002
Digitally remastered at the E Room in Toronto by engineer Peter Moore, utilizing 24-bit technology.
New liner note essay written by Nicholas Jennings.
Released by Rounder Records, 2002.

19 November 2002 – From Rounder Records: Over 76 minutes of music, including 1 bonus track. Featuring songs dating from 1976’s In the Falling Dark to 1987’s Waiting for a Miracle albums, “Bruce Cockburn’s Live” features a cross-section of the artist’s best material from the era. Originally released in 1989, “Live” features a stunning version of Cockburn’s Top 40 hit “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” along with 14 other versions of Cockburn classics such as “Call It Democracy,” “Rumours of Glory,” and “Silver Wheels,” plus a bonus cut of the rock radio and MTV hit “If I Had a Rocket Launcher.” There’s also a lightness and sense of humor on “Live” that is rarely, if ever, seen in Bruce Cockburn’s studio work – he even closes the set with a version of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian. “Live” captures an exceptional performer at the peak of his powers.


Bruce Cockburn - Nothing But A Burning Light - 1991

Nothing But A Burning Light

Bruce Cockburn - Nothing But A Burning Light - 1991
Nothing But A Burning Light – 1991

RELEASE DATE: 1991
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

Chorus:

When you’ve got a dream like mine
Nobody can take you down
When you’ve got a dream like mine
Nobody can push you around

Today I dream of how it used to be
Things were different before
The picture shifts to how it’s going to be
Balance restored

When you know even for a moment
That it’s your time
Then you can walk with the power
Of a thousand generations

[Chorus]

Beautiful rocks — beautiful grass
Beautiful soil where they both combine
Beautiful river — covering sky
Never thought of possession, but all this was mine

When you know even for a moment
That it’s your time
Then you can walk with the power
Of a thousand generations

[Chorus]

August 17, 1990 – Dawson, Yukon Territories

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric guitars and Vocals
Larry Klein – Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Denny Frongheiser – Drums
Michael Blair, Ralph Forbes – Percussion
Sam Phillips – Backing Vocals

Also On:
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Rumours Of Glory box set disc 5 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

And the President said to Kit Carson:
“Take my best four horsemen please
And ride out to the four directions,
Make my great lands barren for me”

Kit Carson said to the President
“You’ve made your offer sweet
I’ll accept this task you’ve set for me
My fall’s not yet complete”

Kit Carson knew he had a job to do
Like other jobs he had before
He’d made the grade
He learned to trade in famine, pestilence, and war

Kit Carson was a hero to some
With his poison and his flame
But somewhere there’s a restless ghost
That used to bear his name

July 1, 1990 – Vaudreuil, Quebec

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric guitars and Vocals
Michael Been – Bass
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Jim Keltner – Drums & Percussion

Also On:
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Used to have a town but the factory moved away
Down to Mexico where they work for hardly any pay
Used to have a country but they sold it down the river
Like a repossessed farm auctioned off to the highest bidder

Mighty trucks of midnight
Moving on
Moving on

Wave a flag, wave the bible, wave your sex or your business degree
Whatever you want — but don’t wave that thing at me
The tide of love can leave your prizes scattered
But when you get to the bottom it’s the only thing that matters

Mighty trucks of midnight
Moving on
Moving on

I believe it’s a sin to try and make things last forever
Everything that exists in time runs out of time some day
Got to let go of the things that keep you tethered
Take your place with grace and then be on your way

June 1991 – Los Angeles

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric guitars and Vocals
Larry Klein – Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Jim Keltner – Drums

I’m going to ask the question
Please answer if you can
Is there anybody’s children can tell me
What is the soul of a man?

Won’t somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won’t somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

I’ve travelled different countries
Travelled to the furthest lands
Couldn’t find nobody could tell me
What is the soul of a man

Won’t somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won’t somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

I saw a crowd stand talking
I just came up in time
Was teaching the lawyers and the doctors
That a man ain’t nothing but his mind

Won’t somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won’t somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

I read the Bible often
I try to read it right
As far as I can understand
It’s nothing but a burning light

Won’t somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won’t somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

When Christ taught in the temple
The people all stood amazed
Was teaching the lawyers and the doctors
How to raise a man from the grave

Won’t somebody tell me
Answer if you can
Won’t somebody tell me
Tell me what is the soul of a man?

cover

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Resonater Guitar & Vocals
Michael Been – Bass
Jim Keltner – Drums & Washboard

Also On:
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Evening sun slants across the road
Painting everything with gold
I’m headed for home, got a woman there
I can barely wait to hold
Got wind in my hair, got the heat inside
Heart jumping up and down
An empty head and a messed-up bed
I’ll be floating just above the ground

Great big love
Sweeping across the sky

Seen a lot of things in the world outside
Some bad but some good stuff too
Felt the touch of love in the works of God
And now and then in what people do
Never had a lot of faith in human beings
But sometimes we manage to shine
Like a light on a hill beaming out to space
From somewhere hard to find

Great big love
Sweeping across the sky

I ride and I shoot and I play guitar
And I like my life just fine
If you try to take one of these things from me
Then you’re no friend of mine
Got a woman I love and she loves me
And we live on a piece of land
I never know quite how to measure these things
But I guess I’m a happy man

Great big love
Sweeping across the sky

August 6,1990 – Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric & Acoustic Guitars and Vocals
T-Bone Burnett – Electric Guitar
Larry Klein – Bass
Denny Frongheiser – Drums
Michael Blair, Ralph Forbes – Percussion
Sam Phillips, Jackson Browne – Backing Vocals

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Guess I’d get along without you
If I had no choice
It’s taken me this long to find you

Done a lot of getting ready for this
Some things we learn so slow
But look at you, you’ve got plenty behind you

There’s lots of ways to hit the ground
Not many answers to be found
We’re faced with mysteries profound
And this is one of the best ones

There are eight million mysteries
In the naked body
Can’t even sight on some distant horizon

Like the nine billion names of God
Don’t bring you any closer
To anyone you can simply set eyes on

But in the same way it’s as real
Don’t always recognize what I feel
But of the dancing scenes that life reveals
This is one of the best ones

Say what you will
There’s no snake oil or pill
Can make love less painful or fine
There’s no theatre
Even of the absurd
Can express what goes on in this meeting of hearts and minds

Guess I’d get along without you
If I had no choice
But please never make it so I have to

Paid a lot of dues to get here
And after all this life
I’m a loser if I don’t live with you

There’s lots of ways to hit the ground
Not many answers to be found
We’re faced with mysteries profound
And this is one of the best ones

May 22, 1990 – Toronto, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Acoustic Guitars and Vocals
Michael Been – Bass
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Jim Keltner – Drums
Mark O’Connor – Violin

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Somebody touched me
Making everything new
Somebody touched me
I didn’t know what to do
Burned through my life
Like a bolt from the blue
Somebody touched me
I know it was you

Somebody touched me
Deep in my bones
Turned a key in the hole
There was somebody home
Some would say that I’m dreaming
But I swear that it’s true
Somebody touched me
I know it was you

Somebody touched me
Like the rain on the wind
Left me alone
Feeling like I’d been skinned
But I know you’re with me
Whatever I go through
Somebody touched me
I know it was you

November 17, 1990 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric Guitar and Vocals
T-Bone Burnett – Acoustic Guitar
Larry Klein – Bass
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Denny Frongheiser – Drums
Jim Keltner – Drums
Michael Blair – Tamborine

Mary grows a child without the help of a man
Joseph get upset because he doesn’t understand
Angel comes to Joseph in a powerful dream
Says “God did this and you’re part of his scheme”
Joseph comes to Mary with his hat in his hand
Says “forgive me I thought you’d been with some other man”
She says “what if I had been – but I wasn’t anyway and guess what
I felt the baby kick today”

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

The child is born in the fullness of time
Three wise astrologers take note of the signs
Come to pay their respects to the fragile little king
Get pretty close to wrecking everything
‘Cause the governing body of the whole [Holy] land
Is that of Herod, a paranoid man
Who when he hears there’s a baby born King of the Jews
Sends death squads to kill all male children under two
But that same bright angel warns the parents in a dream
And they head out for the border and get away clean

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

There are others who know about this miracle birth
The humblest of people catch a glimpse of their worth
For it isn’t to the palace that the Christ child comes
But to shepherds and street people, hookers and bums
And the message is clear if you’ve got [you have] ears to hear
That forgiveness is given for your guilt and your fear
It’s a Christmas gift [that] you don’t have to buy
There’s a future shining in a baby’s eyes

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe

March 1, 1990 – Toronto, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric Guitar and Vocals
Michael Been – Bass
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Jim Keltner – Drums
Sam Phillips – Backing Vocals

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Instrumental

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric Guitar and Vocals
Larry Klein – Bass
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Denny Frongheiser – Drums
Ralph Forbes – Percussion

Out in the desert where the wind never stops
A few simple people try to grow a few crops
Trying to maintain a life and a home
On land that was theirs before the Romans thought of Rome

A few dozen survivors, ragged but proud
With a few woolly sheep, under gathering cloud
It’s never been easy, or free from strife
But the pulse of the land is the pulse of their life

You thought it was over but it’s just like before
Will there never be an end to the Indian wars?

It’s not breech-loading rifles and wholesale slaughter
It’s kickbacks and thugs and diverted water
Treaties get signed and the papers change hands
But they might as well draft these agreements in sand

Noble Savage on the cinema screen
An Indian’s good when he cannot be seen
And the so-called white so-called race
Digs for itself a pit of disgrace

You thought it was over but it’s just like before
Will there never be an end to the Indian wars?

January 25, 1990 – Toronto, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Acoustic Guitar and Vocals
Jackson Browne – Resonator Guitar & Vocals
Mark O’Connor – Violin & Mandolin

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Instrumental

April 1990 – Mississauga, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Electric Guitars
Edgar Meyer – Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Michael Blair, Ralph Forbes – Percussion
Mark O’Connor – Violin

Also On:
Speechless – 2005

I love the pounding of hooves
I love engines that roar
I love the wild music of waves on the shore
And the spiral perfection of a hawk when it soars
Love my sweet woman down to the core

There’s roads and there’s roads
And they call, can’t you hear it?
Roads of the earth
And roads of the spirit
The best roads of all
Are the ones that aren’t certain
One of those is where you’ll find me
Till they drop the big curtain

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days

Little round planet
In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see

Hear the wind moan
In the bright diamond sky
These mountains are waiting
Brown-green and dry
I’m too old for the term
But I’ll use it anyway
I’ll be a child of the wind
Till the end of my days

December 24,1989 – Tucson, Arizona, USA

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn – Resonator Guitar & Vocals
Edgar Meyer – Acoustic Bass
Booker T. Jones – Organ
Mark O’Connor – Violin

Also On:
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014



‘Nothing but a Burning Light’ Bruce Cockburn’s first release for Columbia teams him with producer T-Bone Burnett whose singer/songwriter background, and spiritual leanings, seemed to be a perfect match. Throughout, Burnett’s production is understated, allowing Cockburn’s voice, guitar, and songs to lead the way over a solid foundation of bass, drums, and tasteful organ by Booker T. Jones.

This sort of sympathetic production brings out the best in Cockburn and his material, which is consistently strong. Songs such as “Kit Carson,” “Mighty Trucks of Midnight,” and “Indian Wars” continue the weightier concerns of his work of the past decade, but the majority of the record takes on a more personal, introspective tone. “One of the Best Ones” and “Great Big Love” are winning affirmations of love and life, while the retelling of the nativity, “Cry of a Tiny Babe,” is as beautiful and moving a contemporary Christmas song as you’re likely to hear.

Cockburn also decides to include a rare cover, his excellent reading of the Blind Willie Johnson gospel-blues “Soul of a Man,” which fits nicely in the whole of the album.

Though it may lack the immediate power, Nothing but a Burning Light is Bruce Cockburn’s best since his 1984 release Stealing Fire.

Jackson Browne and Sam Phillips guest on backing vocals. ~ Brett Hartenbach, All Music Guide

Album Info:

All lyrics and music by Bruce Cockburn except “Soul of a Man” lyrics and music by Blind Willie Johnson, arrangement by Bruce Cockburn.

All songs (copyright) 1991 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN) All rights reserved. Used by Permission.

Produced by T-Bone Burnett
Production Assistant: Joe Henry

Engineered and Mixed by: Pat McCarthy at Ocean Way Recording, Hollywood, CA (May-July, 1991), except “A Dream Like Mine” Recorded by Pat McCarthy and Mixed by Dave Leonard at Scream Studieos, Los Angeles, CA
Second Engineer: Paula “Max” Garcia
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City

Sam Phillips appears courtesy of Virgin Records
Jackson Browne appears courtesy of Elektra Entertainment, a division of Warner Communications, Inc.
Mark O’Connor appears courtesy of Warner Brothers
Michael Been appears courtesy of Red Dot Records Limited

Art Direction: Chris Austopchuk
Photography: Anton Corbijn

Thanks for the Help: Donnie Ienner, Steve Berkowitz, Pat McCarthy and T-Bone Burnett.


Bruce Cockburn - Christmas - 1993

Christmas

Bruce Cockburn - Christmas - 1993
Christmas – 1993

RELEASE DATE: 1993
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

Instrumental

Album notes: “Original Latin title meaning, more or less, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful.’ A lovely tune which didn’t seem to require elaboration. It is thought to have been composed by John Francis Wade sometime in the mid-1700’s.”

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
Singing carols, Christmas songs
Early on one Christmas morn

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
Singing carols, Christmas songs
Jesus Christ the son was born

Three wise men saw the star at night
Star that lit the heavens so bright
Star that led them to where Christ was born
Early on one Christmas morn

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
Singing carols, Christmas songs
Early on one Christmas morn

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
Singing carols, Christmas songs
Jesus Christ the son was born

In that city of Bethlehem
Wise men brought Him jewels and gems
Born in a manger humble and low
That is why we love Him so

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
Singing carols, Christmas songs
Jesus Christ the son was born

Mary was his mother calm
cradling him gently in her arms
all hail and praise to Him
peace on earth, goodwill to men

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
singing carols, christmas songs
Early on one Christmas morn

Early on one Christmas morn
Jesus Christ the son was born
singing carols, Christmas songs
Jesus Christ the son was born

Jesus Christ the son was born.

Album notes: “I came across this song around 1972 on an anthology of early gospel recordings. It was performed by a group called the Cottentop Mountain Sanctified Singers and featured a lead vocal by one Frankie ‘Half-Pint’ Jaxon. It was most likely recorded in 1929. One has the feeling on hearing it that the ‘Sanctified’ in the group’s name would come and go depending on whether it was playing in church or in a brothel.”

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the king
And peace to men on earth

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heaven
No ear may hear his coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive him still
The dear Christ enters in

Album notes: “One of the guiding principles which I tried to hold to in making this album was that pieces as familiar as this one are still songs, written by songwriters, with lyrics that often make sense and are beautiful. In some cases it seemed that a little nudge in one direction or another would help to revive their ‘songness’. This was written in the last century by Lewis Redner and Phillips Brooks.”

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

El lobo rabioso
La quiso morder
Mas Dios poderoso
La supo defender
Quizole hazer que
No pudiesse pecar
Ni aun original
Esta uirgen no tuuiera

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

Este uiene a dar
A los muertos uida
Y uiene a reparar
De todas la cayla
Es la luz del dia
Aqueste mocuelo
Este es el cordero
Que San Juan dixera

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

Yo ui mil garcones
Que andauan contando
Por aqui bolando
Haziendo mil sones
Diziendo a gascones,
Gloria sea en el cielo
Y paz en el suelo
Pues Jesus nasciera

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

Este uiene a dar
A los muertos uida
Y uiene a reparar
De todas la cayla
Es la luz del dia
Aqueste mocuelo.
Este es el cordero
Que San Juan dixera.

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

Yo ui mil garcones
Que andauan contando
Por aqui bolando
Haziendo mil sones
Diziendo a gascones
Gloria sea en el cielo
Y paz en el suelo
Pues Jesus nasciera

Riu, riu, chiu
La guarda ribera
Dios guarde el lobo
De nuestra cordera

TRANSLATION:

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb

The rabid wolf tried to bite her
But God Almighty knew how to defend her
He wished to create her impervious to sin
Nor was this maid to embody original sin

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb

He comes to give life to the dead
He comes to redeem the fall of man
This child is the light of day
He is the very lamb Saint John prophecied

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb

A thousand singing herons
I saw passing,
Flying overhead, sounding
A thousand voices
Exulting, “Glory be in the
heavens, and peace on earth,
for Jesus has been born.”

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb

He comes to give life to the dead
He comes to redeem the fall of man
This child is the light of day
He is the very lamb Saint John
prophesied

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb

A thousand singing herons
I saw passing
Flying overhead, sounding
a thousand voices
Exulting, “Glory be in the
heavens, and peace on earth
for Jesus has been born.”

Riu, riu, chiu (nightingale’s sounds)
The river bank protects it,
As God kept the wolf from our lamb.

Album notes: “This is a Spanish composition of the type known as a ‘villancico’, dating from the sixteenth century. The language is archaic, some words being unfamiliar to my Hispanic friends and not found in at least the basic dictionaries. It concerns the shepherds in the biblical Christmas story and observes, among other things, the ‘one born today is actually his mother’s father and the one who created her is said to be her son.’ I learned the song from an early ’70s recording by New York Pro Musica.”

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning

And who do you think was in them then?
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
And who do you think was in them then
But Joseph and his lady

He did whistle and she did sing
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
He did whistle and she did sing
On Christmas day in the morning

And all the bells on earth did ring
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
And all the bells on earth did ring
On Christmas day in the morning

And all the angels in heaven did sing
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
And all the angels in heaven did sing
On Christmas day in the morning

I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day, on Christmas day
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning

Album notes: “This is old and English. To me it’s one of the more peculiar and delightful visions expressed in the body of Christmas music. Are the three ships Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Are they camels, ships of the desert? Are they the product of an artist’s imagination? Was the artist consuming too much ergot in his daily bread?”

Down in yon forest be a hall
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
‘Tis is coverleted over with purple and pall
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, in that hall is a pallet-bed
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
‘Tis stained with blood like cardinal-red
Sing all good men for the new born baby

And at that pallet is a stone
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
On which the virgin did atone
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Under that hall is a gushing flood
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
– From Christ’s own side, ’tis water and blood
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Beside that bed a shrub-tree grows
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
Since he was born it blooms and blows
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, on that bed a young squire sleeps
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
His wounds are sick and sick, he weeps
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Oh, hail yon hall where none can sin
Sing May Queen May sing Mary
‘Cause it’s gold outside and silver within
Sing all good men for the new born baby

Album notes: “If there were a contest for the title of spookiest Christmas carol, this ought to win hands down. Collected earlier in this century by John Jacob Niles, it hails from North Carolina. I believe it to be of great age, though, both because of the melodic style and because of the lyrics, which resonate with the Grail myth, and with the ancient custom of every few years draining the blood out of one’s king onto the soil to ensure its continuing fertility.”

Les anges dans nos campagnes
Ont entonné l’hymne des cieux
Et l’écho de nos montagnes
Redit ce chant mélodieux
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Bergers, pour qui cette fête
Quel-est l’objet de tous ces chants?
Quel vainqueur, quelle conquête
Mérite ces cris triomphants?
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Ils annoncent la naissance
Du Libérateur d’Israël,
Et, pleins de reconnaissance,
Chantent en ce jour solennel:
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Translation:
Angels in our midst
Have intoned the anthem of the heavens
And this melodious song
Echoes from our mountains.
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

Shepherds, for whom are these songs,
What is this celebration for?
Which conqueror, what conquest
Deserves these triumphant cries?
Gloria in excelsis Deo!

They announce the birth
Of Israel’s liberator
And, full of gratitude,
This solemn day they sing:
Glory To God in the Highest (Gloria in excelsis Deo!)

Album notes: “This is a traditional French carol from the eighteenth century. The rhythmic groove is written right into it. Our treatment started out with the intention of trying to get close to the song’s roots, so I played it on the dulcimer, but somehow it acquired a kind of pan-ethnic overlay. These things will happen.”

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

While shepherds kept their watching
O’er silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

Shepherds feared and trembled
When low above the earth
Rang out the angel chorus
That hailed our saviour’s birth

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

Down in a lowly manger
The humble Christ was born
And God sent our salvation
That blessed Christmas morn

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

Album notes: “I have vivid memories of this old spiritual being sung with secular words and with unbearable earnestness by middle class kids in the ’60s, at marches, love-ins and weenie roasts. Fortunately, I more recently came across the version recorded by the gospel group The Swan Silvertones. As the power and beauty of the song poured through the speakers of my truck radio, I knew I had to make it part of the album.”

They wake up suddenly in the night
There is light
And figures dancing in the sky
Clothed in more colours than the world can contain

And all the silences of the night
Leap in song
Like that of a river cascading
from the wild mountain to the slow human plain

Gloria! Gloria in the highest!

A child’s cry sounds from far away
It’s almost day
And in the brown-air town away below
Three travelers reap a star harvest
and then go on their way again

Gloria! Gloria in the highest!
Gloria! Gloria in the highest!

released 1993

Album notes: ‘I wrote this one.’

Silent night
Holy night
All is calm
All is bright
Round yon virgin mother and child
Holy infant, so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

Silent night
Holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories spring from heaven above
Heavenly hosts sing Hallelua
Christ the saviour is born
Christ the saviour is born

Silent night
Holy night
Son of god
Love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
Bring the God of redeeming grace
Jesus lord at thy birth
Jesus lord at thy birth

Album notes: “Franz Gruber and Joseph Mohr wrote this. I think it’s one of the prettiest tunes ever composed. I loved it as a child and still do.”

Ehstehn yayau deh tsaun we yisus ahattonnia
O na wateh wado:kwi nonnwa ‘ndasqua entai
ehnau sherskwa trivota nonnwa ‘ndi yaun rashata
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

Ayoki onki hm-ashe eran yayeh raunnaun
yauntaun kanntatya hm-deh ‘ndyaun sehnsatoa ronnyaun
Waria hnawakweh tond Yosehf sataunn haronnyaun
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

Asheh kaunnta horraskwa deh ha tirri gwames
Tishyaun ayau ha’ndeh ta aun hwa ashya a ha trreh
aundata:kwa Tishyaun yayaun yaun n-dehta
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

(instrumental)

Dau yishyeh sta atyaun errdautau ‘ndi Yisus
avwa tateh dn-deh Tishyaun stanshi teya wennyau
aha yaunna torrehntehn yataun katsyaun skehnn
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

Eyeh kwata tehnaunnte aheh kwashyehn ayehn
kiyeh kwanaun aukwayaun dehtsaun we ‘ndeh adeh
tarrya diskwann aunkwe yishyehr eya ke naun sta
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia

TRANSLATION — “Jesus, He is Born”

Have courage, you who are human beings: Jesus, he is born
The okie spirit who enslaved us has fled
Don’t listen to him for he corrupts the spirits of our thoughts
Jesus, he is born

The okie spirits who live in the sky are coming with a message
They’re coming to say, “Rejoice!
Mary has given birth. Rejoice!”
Jesus, he is born

Three men of great authority have left for the place of his birth
Tiscient, the star appearing over the horizon leads them there
That star will walk first on the bath to guide them
Jesus, he is born

The star stopped not far from where Jesus was born
Having found the place it said,
“Come this way”
Jesus, he is born

As they entered and saw Jesus they praised his name
They oiled his scalp many times, anointing his head
with the oil of the sunflower
Jesus, he is born

They say, “Let us place his name in a position of honour
Let us act reverently towards him for he comes to show us mercy
It is the will of the spirits that you love us, Jesus,
and we wish that we may be adopted into your family
Jesus, he is born

Album notes: “Otherwise known as ‘The Huron Carol’, this is the first Canadian Christmas hymn. It was written early in the 1600s by the Jesuit Fr. Jean de Brebeuf, who acquired fame and martyrdom soon after when he was ceremonially barbecued by members of the Iroquois confederacy, who went on to virtually obliterate the Hurons and their culture. They were encouraged in this by British colonial interests who were after control of French claimed territory, much of which was traditionally Huron. Those of this latter tribe who survived the wars were mostly absorbed into Iroquois communities. A few, however, stayed with the French colonies. Their descendants inhabit a couple of villages in modern Quebec, but their language has largely been lost. Special thanks are due to John Steckley for his help as translator and pronunciation coach.”

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s power
When we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy!

In Bethlehem, in Jewry
This blessed babe was born
And layed within a manger
Upon this blessed morn
For which his mother Mary did nothing take in scorn.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy!

From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed angel came
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same
How that in Bethlehem was born
The son of God by name.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy!

Now to the Lord sing praises
All you within this place
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace
This holy tide of Christmas
All others doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy!

Album notes:“This is another fine old English carol, for which I borrowed from the style of U.K. singer/guitarist Martin Carthy, who, better than anyone I’m aware of, has managed to incorporate the guitar into this type of English folk tradition in a robust and imaginative way.”

It came upon the midnight clear
That glorious song of old
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold
Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heav’n’s all gracious king
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wings
And ever o’er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
two thousand years of wrong
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring
O hush the noise ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow
Take heart for comfort, love, and hope
Come swiftly on the wing
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing

For lo the days are hastening
by prophet bards fortold
When with the ever circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall o’er all the earth
Its ancient splendours lay
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing

Album notes: “The first of what seems to be becoming a series of Christmas radio concerts had me playing Woodstock, NY, in December of ’91. It happened that I was on tour at the time, and it happened that Sam Phillips was the opening act on most of that tour, so it was natural she should be a guest on the radio show. One of her contributions, performed with T-Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, was this arrangement of “Midnight Clear” which she had recorded for a film of that name. Her clever and simple device of shifting the song to a minor key enhanced the poignantly thoughtful words in a way that made me wish I’d thought of it. The next best thing was to sing it that way — so here it is.”

Mary had a baby (My Lord)
Mary had a baby (Oh My Lord)
Mary had a baby (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Where did she lay him (My Lord)
Where did she lay him (Oh My Lord)
Where did she lay him (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Laid him in a manger (My Lord)
Laid him in a manger (Oh My Lord)
Laid him in a manger (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

What did she name him? (My Lord)
What did she name him? (Oh My Lord)
What did she name him? (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Named him King Jesus (My Lord)
Named him King Jesus (Oh My Lord)
Named him King Jesus (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Who heard the singing? (My Lord)
Who heard the singing? (Oh My Lord)
Who heard the singing? (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Shepherds heard the singing (My Lord)
Shepherds heard the singing (Oh My Lord)
Shepherds heard the singing (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Star keeps shining (My Lord)
Star keeps shining (Oh My Lord)
Star keeps shining (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Moving in the elements (My Lord)
Moving in the elements (Oh My Lord)
Moving in the elements (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Jesus went to Egypt (My Lord)
Jesus went to Egypt (Oh My Lord)
Jesus went to Egypt (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Traveled on a donkey (My Lord)
Traveled on a donkey (Oh My Lord)
Traveled on a donkey (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Angels went around him (My Lord)
Angels went around him (Oh My Lord)
Angels went around him (My Lord)
The people keep coming but the train has gone

Album notes: “This call-and-response song appears to have originated on the South Carolina coastal island of Saint Helena in the last century. The verses follow a fairly predictable pattern till you get to ‘moving in the elements…'”

(lyrics coming)

Album notes: “Whatever else you can say about George Frederick Handel–he really knew how to pack a tune with hooks!”



‘Christmas’ is Bruce Cockburn’s 1993 holiday release featuring “Silent Night,” “Mary Had A Baby,” and “Down In Yon Forest.”

Album Info:

All songs are traditional and arranged by Bruce Cockburn, published by Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN) except “Shepherds,” which is written by Bruce Cockburn and published by Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN) and “It Came Upon The Midnight Clear,” which is traditional and arranged by Sam Phillips, published by Eden Bridge Music (ASCAP) and administered by BUG.

Produced by Bruce Cockburn for True North Productions

Tracks recorded by: Joe Schiff at Phase One Studios, Toronto, May 1993
Assistant Engineer: Eric Ratz
Mixed by: Joe Schiff at Sunset Sound, Los Angeles, June 1993
Assistant Engineer: Mike Piersante
Mastered by: Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, NYC

Sam Phillips appears courtesy of Virgin Records America, Inc.
Vivienne Williams appears courtesy of Benchmark Recordings


Bruce Cockburn - Dart To The Heart - 1994

Dart To The Heart

Bruce Cockburn - Dart To The Heart - 1994
Dart To The Heart – 1994

RELEASE DATE: 1994
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

It’s not the laughter of rain in the drain
It’s not the laughter of a man in pain
It’s not the laughter you can hide behind
It’s not the laughter of a frightened mind
Balanced on the brink only waiting for a shove
You better listen for the laugh of love

It’s not the laughter of the gloating rich
It’s not the laughter of the sacred bitch
It’s not the laughter of the macho fool
It’s not the laughter that obeys the rules
More of a chain saw in a velvet glove
You better listen for the laugh of love

It’s not the laughter of a child with toys
It’s not the laughter of the president’s boys
It’s not the laughter of the media king
This laughter doesn’t sell you anything
It’s the wind in the wings of a diving dove
You better listen for the laugh of love
Whatever else you might be thinking of
You better listen for the laugh of love

October 27, 1992 – Charlottesville, VA.

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Mickey Curry: drums
Colin Linden: slide guitar
Jerry Scheff: bass
Darrell Leonard: horn arrangement, trumpet
Christiaan Mostert: tenor saxophone
Greg Smith: baritone saxophone

Also On:
Anything Anywhere Anytime – 2002
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

The hills are full of secrets
Owls watch by night
Down in town the bars are full
And the drunks are picking fights
These are things I know
But the facts are filtered through
All the ways I want you

2:19 freight train
Moaning somewhere near
I see you in the distance
But I can’t get there from here
Hard to believe it’s happening
But my whole world’s shrunken to
All the ways I want you

Stars look down and laugh at me
I ought to take a bow
Don’t have to tell them life’s hard sometimes
There’s one falling now
Nobody’s here beside me
I can talk about it to
All the ways I want you

December 11, 1991 – Atlanta, GA.

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: acoustic guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Mickey Curry: drums
Colin Linden: electric guitar and vocal
Jerry Scheff: bass
Greg Leisz: pedal steel

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

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

In my heart there’s a an image
Like looking through glass
Could be looking at me
Could be looking right past
I don’t like it when
I can’t tell which is true
But I wouldn’t trade the world
For that picture of you

Moon in the water
Cold light in the streets
Warmth in your fingers
Sweat in your sheets
Laid out like an offering
Where two currents meet
The river is dark
But the water is sweet

Wailing on the mountain
Smoke on the wind
Can’t drown out the whisper
Or the scent of your skin
Don’t know where it came from
But I know where it came
There’s a bone in my ear
Keeps singing your name

March 7, 1993 – Woodstock, NY.

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: charango and vocal
Richard Bell: accordian
T-Bone Burnett: drums
Christopher Parker: drums
Colin Linden: mandolin
Jerry Scheff: bass
Greg Leisz: pedal steel

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

From the lying mirror to the movement of stars
Everybody’s looking for who they are
Those who know don’t have the words to tell
And the ones with the words don’t know too well

Chorus:

Could be the famine
Could be the feast
Could be the pusher
Could be the priest
Always ourselves we love the least
That’s the burden of the angel/beast

Birds of paradise — birds of prey
Here tomorrow, gone today
Cross my forehead, cross my palm
Don’t cross me or I’ll do you harm

[Chorus]

We go crying, we come laughing
Never understand the time we’re passing
Kill for money, die for love
Whatever was God thinking of?

[Chorus]

November 20, 1992 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: electric guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: Wurlitzer piano
T-Bone Burnett: organ
Christopher Parker: drums
Colin Linden: acoustic guitar, vocals
Jerry Scheff: bass

I was half asleep in the washroom when they came in
Eyes like moonlight on barbed wire and veins showing under the skin
The uniforms made me nervous, I got ready for the chase
But they left me scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

Something fell on Saskatchewan in 1885
Where is it now that we need it, in this century of jive?
The axe falls as if through water — never leaves a trace
And I’m scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

The world shot down love as a spy, once upon a time ago
Now people stand around here, like crows in the snow
Like the shadow of the rope on Louis Riel, they look so clean out of place
And I’m scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

Though storms may still kiss the grasslands with primal fire
In the land of passive revolution, everything’s for hire
Are they demons, are they lemmings, or just the humans in this place?
Lord, I’m scanning these crowds for some sign of your face

November 22, 1992 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Mickey Curry: drums
Colin Linden: slide guitar, vocals
Jerry Scheff: bass
Darrell Leonard: horn arrangement, trumpet
Christiaan Mostert: tenor saxophone
Greg Smith: baritone saxophone

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

When thoughts you’ve tried to leave behind
Keep sniping from the dark
When the fire burns inside you but
You jump from every spark
When your heart’s beset by memories
You wish you’d never made
When the sun comes up an enemy
And nothing gives you shade

In the southland of the heart
Where the saints go lazily
Lie down
Take your rest with me

When the preacher lays his insight down
And claims to lead the blind
When those you trust just get you hooked
And trifle with your mind
When the nightmare’s creeping closer
And your wheels are in the mud
When everything’s ambiguous
Except the taste of blood

In the southland of the heart
There’s no question of degree
Lie down
Take your rest with me

In the southland of the heart
Everyone was always free
Lie down
Take your rest with me

April 19,1992 – Stouffville, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Benmont Tench: drums
Colin Linden: slide guitar, vocals
Jerry Scheff: bass
Greg Leisz: pedal steel
Darrell Leonard: horn arrangement, trumpet
Christiaan Mostert: tenor saxophone
Greg Smith: baritone saxophone

Instrumental

circa July 1992 & 2005

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn, guitar

Also On:
Speechless – 2005

All the days we’ve been together
All the days we’ve been apart
Add up to a bunch of nothing
If I’m not still in your heart
I never want you to be
Just a page in my history
Someone I used to love

Your voice breathed in my ear
Or on the telephone
All the tender things we’ve whispered
To keep from feeling alone
May they never come to be
Just cold gems set in memory
Of someone I used to love

This current flows between us
That will not be denied
You draw me in towards you
Like the moon pulls at the tide
May no shadow ever fall
That will make me have to call
You someone I used to love

February 29, 1992 – San Francisco, CA.

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: acoustic guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: accordian
T-Bone Burnett: organ
Mickey Curry: drums
Colin Linden: mandolin
Jerry Scheff: bass
Greg Leisz: pedal steel

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Some people get to make the news
Some people get to say what’s true
Everybody’s got to find their own way through
But if you love love, then love loves you too

Some people get to fly by night
Some people get to shine a light
Everybody’s got to find their own way through
But if you love love, then love loves you too
But if you love love, then love loves you too

Some of us hunger for the finer things
Some lust for power like the ancient kings
Some have to leave behind everything they thought they knew
Some people don’t know how much trouble they can brew

Some take the burden of another’s pain
Some spend forever for a moment’s gain
Everybody’s got to find their own way through
But if you love love, then love loves you too
But if you love love, then love loves you too

May 30, 1992 – Bielefeld, Germany

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: electric guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Mickey Curry: drums
Colin Linden: acoustic guitar
Jerry Scheff: bass
Sam Phillips: vocal

Instrumental

April 24, 1989 – St. Louis

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn, guitar

Also On:
Speechless – 2005

There you go
Swimming deeper into mystery
Here I remain
Only seeing where you used to be
Stared at the ceiling
‘Til my ears filled up with tears
Never got to know you
Suddenly you’re out of here

Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light

Walked outside
Summer moon was nearly down
Mist on the fields
Holy stillness all around
Death’s no stranger
No stranger than the life I’ve seen
Still I cry
Still I begged to get you back again

Gone from mystery into mystery
Gone from daylight into night
Another step deeper into darkness
Closer to the light

September 16, 1992 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: acoustic guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ
Christopher Parker: drums, (percussion – not credited)
Colin Linden: electric guitar, vocal
Jerry Scheff: bass

Tie me at the crossroads when I die
Hang me in the wind ’til I get good and dry
And the kids that pass can scratch their heads
And say “who was that guy?”
Tie me at the crossroads when I die

Looking outward see what you can see
By the time you look at something it’s already history
As the echoes of our passing fade, all there is to say
Is, “You know I loved you all in my particular way”

Tie me at the crossroads when I die
Hang me in the wind ’til I get good and dry
And the kids that pass can scratch their heads
And say “who was that guy?”
Tie me at the crossroads when I die

It’s more blessed to give than it is to receive
Except when it comes to free advice I believe
Here I go anyway, back seat driving tonight
Move fast, stay cool, keep your eye on the front sight

Tie me at the crossroads when I die
Hang me in the wind ’til I get good and dry
And the kids that pass can scratch their heads
And say “who was that guy?”
Tie me at the crossroads when I die

January 14, 1992 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: electric guitar and vocal
Richard Bell: organ, vocal
Mickey Curry: drums, vocal
Colin Linden: acoustic guitar, vocal
Jerry Scheff: bass, vocal
Sam Phillips: vocal
T-Bone Burnett: vocal
Stephen Bruton: vocal

Also On:
Slice O Life – 2009



Bruce Cockburn, Dart to the Heart (Columbia 1994) — On his 22nd release, Bruce Cockburn shows why he has been a mainstay on the folk/rock scene for the last quarter-century. Featuring a variety of musical influences, coupled with intelligent lyrics and catchy melodies, Dart to the Heart is an accessible and likeable album.

Album Info:

Produced by T Bone Burnett
Record by Joe Schipp
Recorded at Bearsville Studios, Bearsville, NY (March-1993)
Assistant Engineer: Chris Laidlaw
Technical Assistance: Anthony Aquilato
Also recorded at: Sunset Sound Recording, Los Angeles, CA (March-June 1993)
Assistant Engineer: Mike Pieliante
Horns recorded at Ocean Way, Los Angeles, CA (June, 1993)
Engineer: Noel Hazen
Mixed by Glyn Johns at Warnham Lodge Farm, West Sussex, England
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Stealing Sound, New York City
Art Direction: Sara Rutman, Chris Austopchuk
Photography: Dana Tynan

Thanks to all those who put up with, and put out for, the demands presented by the making of this record: Sue; T Bone and Sam; Glyn, Glynis, Ethan and Samantha; Dana; and all the players.

Also to: Bernie Finkelstein, Don Ienner, Steve Berkowitz, Derek Simon, Chris Austopchuk and John Laroque/Ring Music.


Bruce Cockburn - Charity Of Night - 1996

The Charity Of Night

Bruce Cockburn - The Charity Of Night - 1997
The Charity Of Night – 1997

RELEASE DATE: February 4, 1997
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North
RE-ISSUE: November 24, 2022
PURCHASE: the 180g black vinyl from True North

Not a knife throw from here you can hear the night train passing
That’s the sound somebody makes when they’re getting away
Leaving next week’s hanging jury far behind them
Prisoner only of the choices they’ve made

Night train

Ice cube in a dark drink shines like starlight
The moon is floating somewhere out at sea
I’m an island in the blur of noise and color
Alcatraz, St. Helena, Patmos and the Chateau D’If

Night train

And everyone’s an island edged with sand
A temporary refuge where somebody else can stand
Till the sea that binds us like the forced tide of a blood oath
Will wear it down – dissolve it – recombine it

Anyone can die here they do it every day
It doesn’t take much effort tho it goes against the grain
And the ultimate forgetfulness of violence
Sweeps the landscape like a headlight of a train

Night train

Ice cube in a dark drink shines like star light
Starlight shines like glass shards in dark hair
And the mind’s eye tumbles out along the steel track
Fixing every shadow with its stare

Night train
Night train

And in the absence of a vision there are nightmares
And in the absence of compassion there is cancer
Whose banner waves over palaces and mean streets
And the rhythm of the night train is a mantra

February 6, 1996 – Halton Hills

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic and Electric Guitar and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums, Percussion
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Jonatha Brooke and Patty Larkin: Vocals

Also On:
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

(I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers
It didn’t take long – I don’t know much about Turkish drummers –
But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes
Who’d been in the Afghan secret police
Who made the observation
That it’s hard
To live

Then I was reminded of the proprietor of a Vietnamese restaurant in Quebec who used to be head of the secret police in Da Nang – and it occurred to me I was thinking about all this stuff to keep from thinking about something else… Isn’t that just what secret police are all about???)

Somebody stands in a window
Watches the river roll
Trains rumble in the foreground
With the weight of approaching dawn

Flames from the refinery
Rise broken, red and riveting
And the high vault of heaven
Looks far away and cold

There’s howling in the factory yard
There’s pounding in my head
I’m swollen up with unshed tears
Bloated like the dead…

(Instrumental break)

Blood and ashes – time burning
On the skyline dark against the stars
A solitary horseman – waiting

Lashed to the wheel
Whipping into the storm
Get up, Jonah
It’s your time to be born

October 10, 1995 – Halton Hills

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resophonic and Electric Guitar and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums
Gary Burton: Vibes
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Jonatha Brooke and Ani DiFranco: Vocals

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I’ve proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip’s worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It’s as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you’ll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can’t see what’s round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage

June 24, 1995 – Philadelphia.

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar and Vocal
Janice Powers: Keyboards
Rob Wasserman: Bass

Also On:
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Instrumental

released 1996 & 2005

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar
Gary Burton: Vibes

Also On
Speechless – 2005

They turned their backs
I made it too hard
Every place they touched me
Is a laceration now

Sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere
And knocks you off your feet
And look, see my tears
They fill the whole night sky
The whole night sky

Derailed and desperate
How did I get here?
Hanging from this high wire
By the tatters of my faith

Sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere
And knocks you off your feet
And look, see my tears
They fill the whole night sky
The whole night sky

Sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere
And knocks you sideways
And look, see my tears
They fill the whole night sky
The whole night sky

June 27, 1994 – Cologne

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitars and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums, Percussion
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Bob Weir: Vocals
Colin Linden: Mandolin
Janice Powers: Low, Wiggly Keyboards
Bonny Raitt: Slide Guitar
Joe Macerollo: Accordion

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 & 8 – 2014

All day the mountains rose behind a veil of smoke from burning fields
And road dust dyeing black skin bronze and the road rolling like a rough sea
It’s quiet now, just crickets and a dog fight somewhere in the far away
In my heart I hold your photograph
And the thought of you comes on like the feel of the coming rains

Hot breeze ran its fingers through the long grass of a thatched roof eave
They stuck me in the only chair they had while they cooked cassava
And a luckless hen
They asked for one well three lanterns and 200 litres of fuel and
I said, “Who, me?”
And the time for planting’s coming soon
And the thought of you comes on like the feel of the coming rains

In the town neon flickers in the ruins
Seven crows swoop past the luscious moon
If I had wings like those there’d be no waiting
I’d come panting to your door and slide like smoke into your room

All day the mountains rose behind a veil of smoke from burning fields
And road dust dyeing black skin bronze and the road rolling like a rough sea
It’s quiet now, just crickets and a dog fight somewhere in the far away

In my heart I hold your photograph
And the thought of you comes on like the feel of the coming rains

And the time for planting’s coming soon
And the thought of you comes on like the feel of the coming rains

September 11, 1995 – Quelimane

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Dobro and Electric Guitars and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums, Tambourine
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Gary Burton: Vibes
Maria Muldaur, Jonatha Brooke and Patty Larkin: Vocals

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

Birmingham
Just behind the mountain
Sparse streelamps glow in hot half-moon haze
Shadows shorten into little black pools that elongate behind
We walk, talk some, laugh some
Worked hard, now wired, and hanging out
I’m curious what you might be all about
Curious, too, what that dark-shape in the hard shining cruiser might do
And you have no idea what you’re getting
out of of your own curiosity and tense energy
Tattoo on chest like the key to the puzzle of your pumping heart
Wearing your shadows all over your sleeve
Wearing the role of young upstart

Chorus:
Birmingham shadows fall
You show a little, I let something show too
It’s now or not at all
Out on the road, it’s always instant get-to-know-you

Under velvet trees, towering like the sides of a well
Before the empty two office blocks
Which we’re admonished not to enter
Policeman studies us, finds us confusing
More amusing than threat
Moves on, bemused
Pavement spirals down ahead like the fossil of a giant shell
Along the kingdom’s midnight marches
I wear my shadows where they’re harder to see
But they follow me everywhere
I guess that should tell me that I’m travelling toward light
I guess something you sang made me remember that
I guess I’m saying thanks for that
[Chorus]
[Instrumental Break]
Got a head full of horrors and a heart full of night
At home in the darkness, but hungry for dawn
I only remember scenes, never the stories I live
The good things about that is, it’s easy to forgive
Can’t make assumptions about any of this
We’re nomads following our own songlines
Who knows what could strike before we meet again?
But if I fall down and die
Without saying goodbye
I give you this: you’ll have lost a friend
[Chorus]

July 8,1995 – Halton Hills

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resophonic Guitar and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Gary Burton: Vibes

Also On:
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1997

There’s a broad river winding
Through this African lowland
The moon is held up orange and big
See it raise its hands
And the last ferry’s pulling out
With no place left to stand
For the mines of Mozambique

There’s a wealth of amputation
Waiting in the ground
But no one can remember
Where they put it down
If you’re the child that finds it there
You will rise upon the sound
Of the mines of Mozambique

Some men rob the passersby
For a bit of cash to spend
Some men rob whole countries dry
And still get called their friend
And under the feeding frenzy
There’s a wound that will not mend
In the mines of Mozambique

Night, like peace,
Is a state of suspension
Tomorrow the heat will rise
And mist will hide the marshy fields
The mango and the cashew trees
Which only now they’re clearing brush from under.

Rusted husks of blown up trucks
Line the roadway north of town
Like passing through a sculpture gallery
War is the artist
But he’s sleeping now

And somebody will be peddling vials of penicillin stolen out of all the medical kits sent to the countryside.

And in the bare workshop they’ll be molding plastic into little prosthetic limbs
For the children of this artist
And for those who farm the soil that received
His bitter seed…

The all-night stragglers stagger home
Cocks begin to crow
And singing birds are starting up
Telling what they know
And after awhile the sun will come
And we’ll see what it will show
Of the mines of Mozambique

September 11, 1995 – Quelimane

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resophonic and Electric Guitars and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums, Percussion
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Janice Powers: Mongolian keyboard thing
Jonatha Brook: Backup Vocals and Arrangement

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

See you standing in the door against the dark
Fireflies around you like a crown of sparks
You blow me a kiss that blurs my vision
Blurs the human condition

You’re the ocean ringing in my brain
You are my island ripe with cane
Catch the scent of strange flowers when you pass
Fluid motion like the wind in grass

It’s your eyes I want to see
Looking into mine
Got you live on my mind
All the time

Light me like incense in the night
Light me like a candle burning bright
Light me like a searchlight in the sky
Time means nothing when I look in your eyes

It’s your eyes I want to see
Looking into mine
Got you live on my mind
All the time

It’s your eyes I want to see
Looking into mine
Got you live on my mind
All the time

circa January 1993 – Maui

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resophonic and Electric Guitars and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Janice Powers: Keyboards
Gary Burton: Vibes
Jonatha Brook: Harmonies

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 5 – 2014

Big city Europa – July of 64 – It’s 5AM
Weather blowing bitter off the Baltic.

Car slows beside him as he walks
Hubcaps slow revolution
Jaundiced-looking pockmarked face, round in window
Short greasy black beard

Couple of language stabs, settle on English
“It’s cold – I give you ride.
Don’t you want to kiss me?”

This goes on halfway across the cobbled bridge
Driver pulls ahead – gets out by the construction fence
Ambles towards him rubbing the bulge in his pants

In his jacket is the revolver
The hand is already in the pocket for warmth and fingers slide easily around wood grips

Slow as that predator’s footsteps the gun comes out
Arm straightens, sight blade bisecting yellow forehead
Wind – blue metal streetlight – Faint twilight shining on the corners of stones.

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night

Slow revolution – 1985 – crosswise in a hammock in the hot volcanic hills
Its 3AM the night after the air raid
From the ridge she watched A37s, like ugly gulls,
Make a dozen swooping passes over some luckless town
Maybe ten kliks beyond the border
In the distance the Pacific glimmered silver

Now lascivious laughter floats on the darkness from the police post next door-
Male voices – and a woman’s –
Little clouds of desire painted around the edges with rum
In the muddy street a pig suddenly screams

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night

Pacific glimmers silver
Moon full over shadow mansion
West coast – Can’t say when
There is incense and the heat-driven scent of flowers

Tongue slides over soft skin
Love pounds in veins brains buzzing balls of lust
Fingers twine in wet hair
Limbs twist and roll

On the dresser wax drips in slow motion down the long side of
A black candle
Ecstatic halo of flame and pheromone-

Wave on wave of life
Like the great wide ocean’s roll
Haunting hands of memory
Pluck silver strands of soul
The damage and the dying done
The clarity of light
Gentle bows and glasses raised
To the charity of night

October 29, 1994 – Schenectady, NY

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar and Vocals
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Gary Burton: Vibes
Colin Linden: Mandolin
Joe Macerollo: Accordion

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 1 – 2014

I’ve seen a high cairn kissed by holy wind
Seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins
Seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities
The mad whose blessing you must accept without pity

I’ve stood in airports guarded glass and chrome
Walked rifled roads and landmined loam
Seen a forest in flames right down to the road
Burned in love till I’ve seen my heart explode

You’ve been leading me
Beside strange waters

Across the concrete fields of man
Sun ray like a camera pans
Some will run and some will stand
Everything is bullshit but the open hand

You’ve been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

You’ve been leading me
Beside strange waters
Streams of beautiful lights in the night
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys?
If I loose my grip, will I take flight?

November 7, 1995 – Halton Hills

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resophonic and Electric Guitars and Vocal
Gary Craig: Drums, Percussion
Rob Wasserman: Bass
Jonatha Brooke and Patty Larkin: Vocals

Also On:
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1997
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014



Includes an impressive supporting cast consisting of Gary Burton, Gary Craig, and Rob Wasserman, plus special guests Jonatha Brooke, Ani DiFranco, Patty Larkin, Maria Muldaur, Bonnie Raitt and Bob Weir.

Album Info:

Produced by Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden
Recorded and mixed by John Whynot
Additiional recording by Colin Linden
Recorded at Reaction Studios, Toronto with additional recording at The Plant, Sausalito, Bob Weir’s studio, and Electro Magnetic Sound by Pinhead Recorders
Transfers at Manta/Eastern Sound
Rentals courtesy Casa Wroxton Studio
Mixed at Kingsway, New Orleans

Assisted by Ormond Jobin, Tom Heron, Tom Paddock, Michael McGuinn, Jo Rossi and especially Ethan Allen.

Mastered by Stephen Marcussen at Precision Mastering
Assisted by Ron Boustead

Jacket Illustrations and Album Design by William Sienkiewicz
Photo by Macolm Burn
Layout assistance by Karin Doherty

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn
All songs © 1996 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (BMI)
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Traductions: Jane Macauley, Marcel Moussette

Thanks to Bernie Finkelstein, Justin Deneau, Sy Potma, Danny Greenspoon, Janice Powers, Frank Finistory, Karen Brady, Malcolm Burn, Kim Lafleur, Daniel Broome, Caryl McCowan, Chris Brady for BBQ & firetruck, Daniel Keebler/Gavin’s Woodpile, Peavey Musical Instruments.

Thanks to the following for support, inspiration, lighting-a-fire-under-the-ass, and other gifts, intentional or not: Sue, Michael O’Connor, Rex Fyles, Sandra Wood and Chude Mondlane, The Maputo Police Department for leaving the various body parts attached, Deminers everwhere, Ani for reminding me what energy is for, John and Matt for the biochemistry, the Humans, Susan Gitlin-Emmer (“Lady of the Northern Light”), the Book of Psalms, Kel and Jon for the introduction to Cormac McCarthy, C. Woodman for her wisdom, the folks at City Stages, God for always keeping the ladder in place.

Jonatha Brooke appears courtesy of Blue Thumb Records
Gary Burton appears courtesy of Concord Records
Ani DiFranco appears courtesy of Righteous Babe Records
Patty Larkin appears courtesy of High Street/Windham Hill
Colin Linden appears courtesy of Columbia Records/Sony Music Canada
Maria Muldaur appears courtesy of Telarc International Corporation
Bonnie Raitt appears courtesy of Capitol Records
Rob Wasserman plays an N.S. Double Bass, Rob Wasserman Signature Six-String Model, designed by Ned Steinberger


Bruce Cockburn - You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance - 1998

You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance

Bruce Cockburn - You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance - 1998
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1998

RELEASE DATE: January 20, 1998
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

1. Call It Democracy (5:43)
2. Stolen Land (7:06)
3. Strange Waters (6:30)
4. Fascist Architecture (2:46)
5. You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance (4:31)
6. Birmingham Shadows (10:46)

(Songs are linked to original album for lyrics)



Live album – Recorded at the Barrymore Theatre in Madison, Wisconsin on May 3, 1997.

Album Info:

In the Studio:

Produced and mixed by: Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden
Mix engineer: Colin Linden
Assistant: Annelise Noronha
Mixed at: Manta Eastern Sound, Toronto

Originally recorded for the 105.5 Triple-M radio program “Mad City Live”, a production of Audio for the Arts, Madison, WI.
Buzz Kemper and Steve Gotcher, producers.
Engineered by Steve Gotcher and Tom Blain with assistance from Jeremy Smith, using the Audio for the Arts remote recording truck.

Recorded live at the Barrymore Theater, Madison, WI on May 3, 1997.
Mastered by Toby Mountain at Northeastern Digital Recording, Inc., Southboro, MA.

Package design: Barbara Longo
Front cover photo: Marie Westhaver
Inside band photos: Adam Pike Riesner
The Charity of Night cover elements: William Sienkiewicz

Traductions: Jane Macaulay, Marcel Moussette

On the Road:

Guitars and vocals: Bruce Cockburn
Bass and background vocals: Steve Lucas
Drums and background vocals: Ben Riley

Tour manager: Leslie Charbon
Front of house sound: Bob McFee/Jon Erickson
Lights: Glen Murphy/Steve Hill
Monitors: Russ Wilson
Guitar tech: Trevor Gilchrist/Tim Mech

Bus Drivers: Steve Headly/Michel “Bam Bam” Dufault/Bob Penny/Bart Oakes
Truck Driver: John “Stranger” Adams

Agency: Steve Martin for The Agency Group, New York, NY


Bruce Cockburn - Breakfast In New Orleans Dinner In Timbuktu - 1999

Breakfast In New Orleans, Dinner In Timbuktu

Bruce Cockburn - Breakfast In New Orleans Dinner In Timbuktu - 1999
Breakfast In New Orleans Dinner In Timbuktu – 1999

RELEASE DATE: September 14, 1999
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North
RE-ISSUE: November 24, 2022
PURCHASE: the 180g black vinyl from True North

Slid out of my dreams like a baby out of the nurse’s hands
Onto the hard floor of day
I’d been wearing OJ’s gloves and I couldn’t get them off
It was too early but I couldn’t sleep
Showered and dressed, stepped out into the heat
The parrot things on the porch next door
Announced my arrival on Chartres Street
With their finest rendition of squealing brakes

Down in Kaldi’s café the newspaper headlines promised new revelations
Concerning Prince Charles’ Amex account
A morose young man in old-tim Austrian drag
Stares past his long mustache at the ground
And last night’s punks and fetish kids
All tattoos and metal bits
And in the other corner (wearing the white trunks)
Today’s tourists already sweating

Deep in the city of the saints and fools
Pearls before pigs and dung become jewels
I sit down with tigers, I sit down with lambs
None of them know who exactly I am

I’ve got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away

Languid mandalla of the ceiling fan
Teases the air like a slow stroking hand
Study the faces, study the cards
Study the shadow creeping over the yard

I’ve got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away

Trouble with the nations, trouble with relations
Where you going to go to find illumination?
Too much to carry, too much to let go
Time goes fast – learning goes slow

But I’ve got this thing in my heart
I must give you today
It only lives when you
Give it away

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Electric Guitars, Vocals, Handclaps
Gary Craig: Drums
Richard Bell: Organ
John Dymond: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Carlos Del Junco: Harmonica
Stephen Donald: Trombone
Sally Sweetland: Handclaps
Lucinda Williams: Harmony

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

She’s got a mango in the garden – sweet as can be
She’s got a mango in the garden – full of mystery
She’s got a mango in the garden – from the original tree
She’s got a mango in the garden – shares it with me

Humid gleaming precious well
Love to drink that water
Parallel worlds when the sun goes down
The atmosphere grows hotter

She’s got a mango in the garden – sweet as can be
She’s got a mango in the garden – full of mystery
She’s got a mango in the garden – from the original tree
She’s got a mango in the garden – shares it with me

I slip through the glistening gate
Tide began to pound
Tears of light poured over me
And ricocheted all around

She’s got a mango in the garden – sweet as can be
She’s got a mango in the garden – full of mystery
She’s got a mango in the garden – from the original tree
She’s got a mango in the garden – shares it with me

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar and Vocals
George Koller: Bass
Ben Riley: Drums
Daniel Janke: Kora
Margo Timmins: Harmonies

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

I’m sipping Flor De Caña* and lime juice, it’s three a.m.
Blow a fruit fly off the rim of my glass
The radio’s playing Superchunk and the friends of Dean Martinez

Midnight it was bike tires whacking the pot holes
Milling humans’ shivering energy glow
Fusing the space between them with bar-throb bass and laughter

If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?

I learned as a child not to trust in my body
I’ve carried that burden through my life
But there’s a day when we all have to be pried loose

If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?

I’ve seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all
That was the straw that broke me open

If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?

Toronto

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitars, Vocals
Gary Craig: Drums
Richard Bell: Organ
John Dymond: Bass
Colin Linden: Electric Guitar
Janice Powers: Keyboard
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Jonell Mosser: Harmony

Also On:
Anything Anywhere Anytime – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Heavy northern autumn sky
Mist-hung forest — Dark spruce, bright maple —
And the great lake rolling forever to the narrow gray beach

I look west along the red road of the frail sun
Where it hovers between shelf of cloud and spiky trees,
Receding shore;

The world is full of seasons; of anguish, of laughter
And it comes to mind to write you this:

Nothing is sure
Nothing is pure
And no matter who we think we are
Everyone gets his chance to be nothing

Love’s supposed to heal, but it breaks my heart to feel
The pain in your voice —
But you know, it’s all going somewhere
And I would crush my heart and throw it in the street
If I could pay for your choice

Isn’t that what friends are for?
Isn’t that what friends are for?

We’re the insect life of paradise:
Crawl across leaf or among towering blades of grass
Glimpse only sometimes the amazing breadth of heaven

You’re as loved as you were
Before the strangeness swept through
Our bodies, our houses, our streets —
When we could speak without codes
And light swirled around like
Wind-blown petals,
Our feet

I’ve been scraping little shavings off my ration of light
And I’ve formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it
I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache
Under a loose board in the floor
And I blow across it and I send it to you
Against those moments when
The darkness blows under your door

Isn’t that what friends are for?
Isn’t that what friends are for?
Isn’t that what friends are for?

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
George Koller: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Janice Powers: Keyboards
Ben Riley: Cymbals
Lucinda Williams: Harmony

Instrumental

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar
George Koller: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Ben Riley: Drums

You knelt on the carpet, crimson and stained
Light trickled over your black dress like rain
Your lips were hot and my shocked heart screamed
And I can’t scrape my eyes free of this dream

We each occupy the same space/time
Matter, antimatter, tangled like vines
And the awful tolling, and the cold rain outside
And I cannot scrape this dream off my eyes

And the embers of Eden burn
You can even see it from space
And the great and winding wall between us
Seem to copy the lines of your face

And the embers of Eden burn
You can even see it from space
And the great and winding wall between us
Seem to copy the lines of your face

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar, Vocals
Steve Lucas:: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Janice Powers: Keyboards
Ben Riley: Drums
Jonell Mosser: Harmony

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014

I found my thrill
On Blueberry Hill
On Blueberry Hill
When I found you.

The moon stood still
On Blueberry Hill
And lingered until
My dreams came true.

The wind in the willow played
Love’s sweet melody;
But all of those vows we made
Were never to be

Tho’ we’re apart,
You’re part of me still
For you were my thrill
On Blueberry Hill

cover

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Electric & 12-String Guitars, Vocals
Gary Craig: Drums
Richard Bell: Organ
John Dymond: Bass
Janice Powers: Keyboard
Margo Timmins: Duet Vocal

Judge said to the hooker, “Can you come out to play?
I’ve been condemning people all day long, that’s how I get paid
My dreams are full of criminals frolicking about
Open up the window, let the bad air out!”

Strangled by confusion, my mind is in decay
Can’t picture tomorrow, can’t remember yesterday
Send out for the Black & Decker and the psychiatric couch
Open up the window, let the bad air out

Traitors in high places take my money, tell me lies
Take a walk past Parliament, it smells like something died
They ask for trust, but somehow I’ve got serious doubts
Open up the window, let the bad air out

Too much monkey business, like Mr. Berry said
Drugs and oil and money, don’t mean nothing when you’re dead
At the risk of being subversive, nothing left to do but shout
“Open up the window, let the bad air out!”

circa November 1991

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Vocals
Steve Lucas: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Ben Riley: Drums
Carlos Del Junco: Harmonica
Stephen Donald: Trombone
Daniel Janke: Kora

On this rooftop where we’re sitting
In the rays of the setting sun
Glasses of wine on a crate between us
Catch the light — seem to glow from within

And there’s a laugh
Hanging in the air
And there’s no
Desperation anywhere

So many miles, so many doors
Some need patience, some need force
All fall open in their own due course
To allow us this time

And your limned
In light, golden and thin
Looks to me
Like you’re lit up from within

And look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
To paint you
This way

And I picture us in this light
Friendship a fine silver web
Stretched across golden smoky haze
And this is simple
And this is grace

And this light
Is a guest from far away
Passing through
The last whisper of day

And look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
Look how far the light came
To paint you
This way

Beginning of April 1998 – Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resonator & Electric Guitars, Vocals
Steve Lucas: Bass
Rick Lazar: Percussion
Ben Riley: Drums
Carlos Del Junco: Harmonica
Stephen Donald: Trombone
Janice Powers: Keyboard
Lucinda Williams: Harmony

Instrumental

released 1999 & 2005

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Acoustic Guitar
George Koller: Bass & Dilruba
Rick Lazar: Percussion

Also On:
Speechless – 2005

There’s a black and white crow
on the back of a two-toned sheep
in a field of broken yellow stalks
below looming cliffs.

High above the plains
little grey houses blend
with giant jagged boulders
and pale weathered stumps.

Life in the ghost of the bush.

Wind whips the acacias and strange forked palms
That cluster around the water hole

Suddenly, out of the blowing sand
A milk-white camel appears.

Turbaned rider, blue robe billowing,
bounces with the shambling trot;
wears a sword and a rifle on his back,
and hanging from his neck, a transistor radio…

You blink and like ghosts, they’re gone

Under the wan disc of sand-masked sun
A woman grins – spits expertly
Into the path of a struggling black beetle
Six feet away
Hoists her water bucket onto her head
And strides off up the trail…

Sun a steel ball glowing
Behind endless blowing sand
Sun a steel ball glowing
Dust of fallen empires slowly flowing through my hands
Use me while you can

Pearl held in black fingers
Is the moon behind dry trees
Pearl held in black fingers
Bird inside the rib cage is beating to be free
Use me while you can

I’ve had breakfast in New Orleans
Dinner in Timbuktu
I’ve lived as a stranger in my own house, too
Dark hand waves in lamplight
Cowrie shell patterns change
And nothing will be the same again

Bullet in a sandstorm
Looking for a place to land
Bullet in a sandstorm
Full heart beats an empty one
In the deck they dealt to man
Use me while you can

released 1999

Musicians:
Bruce Cockburn: Resonator & 12 String Guitars, Vocals
Gary Craig: Drums
Richard Bell: Organ
John Dymond: Bass
Daniel Janke: Kora
Lucinda Williams: Harmony

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 6 – 2014



Features special guest appearances by Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) and Lucinda Williams, and includes performances from Daniel Janke on the West African kora, and Richard Bell (The Band, Janis Joplin) on keyboards.

Album Info:

Production notes:
Released worldwide on 14 September 1999 Produced by Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden
Recorded and mixed by John Whynot
Additional recording by Colin Linden and Mike Poole
Recorded at Reaction Studios, the Gas Station and Pinhead Recorders, Toronto; The Doghouse, Nashville.
Mixed at Sound City, Los Angeles.
Assisted by Tom Heron, Chris Stringer and Marek
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City
Disc & traycard photo plus assorted original colour photographs by Sally Sweetland.
Additional B&W photography by Gayle Hurmuses.
Art direction, design and layout by A Man Called Wrycraft, Toronto, Canada.

Song credits:
All songs written by Bruce Cockburn ©1999 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN), except “Blueberry Hill” which is written by Al Lewis, Vincent Rose & Larry Stock; Chappell & Co./Sovereign Music Co. (ASCAP).

Lucinda Williams contributed harmony to ‘When You Give It Away”, “Isn’t That What Friends Are For”, “Look How Far”, and “Use Me While You Can”

Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies) contributed harmonies on “Mango” and the duet vocal on “Blueberry Hill”

Daniel Janke played kora (click for picture: a kora is a 21-stringed African harp) on “Mango”, “Let The Bad Air Out”, and “Use Me While You Can”

Richard Bell (The Band, Janis Joplin) played organ on “When You Give It Away”, “Last Night Of The World”, “Blueberry Hill”, and “Use Me While You Can”

Percussionist Rick Lazar contributed to all the songs on the album except “Blueberry Hill” and “Use Me While You Can”.

On “Deep Lake” bassist George Koller plays dilruba (click for picture: an Indian instrument that looks like a sitar but is played with a violin bow, and sounds exactly as you imagine the combination of these two instruments would). Believe it or not, the violin sounding instrument on “Down To The Delta” (that kicks in 3 mins 08 secs into the track), also played by Koller, is actually a double bass.


Bruce Cockburn - Anything Anytime Anywhere - 2002

Anything Anytime Anywhere

Bruce Cockburn - Anything Anytime Anywhere - 2002
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002

RELEASE DATE: January 15, 2002
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

The Singles 1979-2002
Songs are linked to original album for lyrics

Past the derelict mattress
and the overgrown pavement
over the tracks
and through the hole in the fence
Past graffiti-bright buildings
and the junkyard alarm bell
and the screaming police cars
and it’s all present tense

It’s my beat
In my new town

Past the drunk woman reeling
with her bag of provisions
Down through the tunnel
with the stink-fuming bus
On to the bike path
where it’s something like freedom
and the wind in my earring whispers
Trust what you must

It’s my beat
In my new town

Ancient and always
The wheel’s ever whirling
Today I’m riding
Tomorrow I walk
Step through forever
into this very moment
The heart is pumping
and the heart rocks

It’s my beat
In my new town

July 18, 2001 – Montreal, Canada

Musicians:
Background vocals: Patty Griffin

Also On:
Rumours OF Glory box set disc 7 – 2014

2. Wondering Where The Lions Are (3:42)
3. Tokyo (3:28)
4. The Coldest Night Of The Year (remix) (4:24)
5. The Trouble With Normal (3:35)
6. Lovers In A Dangerous Time (4:06)
7. If I Had A Rocket Launcher (4:57)
8. Call It Democracy (3:51)
9. Waiting For A Miracle (remix)(4:50)
10. If a Tree Falls (5:42)
11. A Dream Like Mine (4:55)
12. Listen for the Laugh (4:05)
13. Night Train (6:11)
14. Pacing The Cage (4:37)
15. Last Night of the World (4:50)

Tomorrow may come, it usually does
Don’t know what it will bring to the two of us
I just want you to know
What I’m ready to do

Anything, anytime, anywhere
For you

When I’m holding you tight, you give me the power
To burn like a torch in the darkest hour
Tell me what you need
I will surely come through

Anything, anytime, anywhere
For you

Passion runs deep, it’s scary sometimes
When it’s larger than life or your peace of mind
It’s got me all the same
And I’m not sorry that’s true

Anything, anytime, anywhere
For you

Anything, anytime, anywhere
For you

Anything, anytime, anywhere
For you

January 3, 1992 – Halton Hills, Ontario, Canada
(released 15 January 2002)

Musicians:
guitar: Bruce Cockburn
bass: Steve Lucas
drums: Ben Riley
violin: Hugh Marsh
electric mandolin: Colin Linden
background vocals: The Fairfield Four, Isaac Freeman, Wilson Waters, Joe Rice, Robert Hamblett
Arranger: Mark Prentice

Also On:
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)



Includes two new tracks ‘My Beat’ & ‘Anything Anytime Anywhere’ – 74 minutes of Bruce’s most popular radio hits, all 24 bit remastered and with 2 new remixes.

Album Info:

Production notes:
Released worldwide on 15 January 2002
Compilation produced by Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden
Remix producers: Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden
Remix engineer: John Whynot
Assitant engineer: King Williams
Waiting For A Miracle remixed at Universal Studios, Nashville, August 2001
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound, New York City
Art direction, design and layout by A Man Called Wrycraft, Toronto, Canada.
Photography by Kevin Kelly

Direction:
The Finkelstein Management Company ltd.
260 Richmond Street West
Suite 501
Toronto, Ontaria, Canada, m5v 1w5
phone: 416-596-8696
fax: 416-596-6861
e-mail: truenorth@ca.inter.net

Song credits:
All songs written by Bruce Cockburn ©Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN)
My Beat –
Produced by Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden.
Recorded by Hohn Whynot.
Mixed by Colin Linden at Universal Studios, Nashville, September 2001.
Assisted by Chuck Linder.
Recorded at Reaction Studios, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, August 2001.
Background vocals: Patty Griffin.

Anything Anytime Anywhere –
Produced by Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden.
Recorded and mixed by: John Whynot at Universal Studios, Nashville, September, 2001.
Assisted by: King Williams and Jeff Elliot.
Recorded at Reaction Studios, Toronto August, 2001.
Written: Halton Hills, 1/3/92.
guitar: Bruce Cockburn
bass: Steve Lucas
drums: Ben Riley
violin: Hugh Marsh
electric mandolin: Colin Linden
background vocals: The Fairfield Four, Isaac Freeman, Wilson Waters, Joe Rice, Robert Hamblett.
Arranger: Mark Prentice.