shadow
Bruce Cockburn - Further Adventures Of - 1978/2002

Further Adventures Of

Bruce Cockburn - Further Adventures Of - 1978/2002
Further Adventures Of

RELEASE DATE: 1978 / 2002
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

* Bonus tracks on the remastered CD version released by Rounder Records in 2002.

1. Rainfall (3:49)

Rainfall on rolling green
Wavy lines and peacock sheen
Rainfall on rolling green
Prettiest world I’ve ever seen

Faces and places in a highway land
Beads strung on a silver strand
Quick silver in a callused hand
Never a place for the Son of Man

Born under a rainbow sign
Flash of wave in space and time
Molten glass and hearts that shine
Stone to gold in fire refined

released 1978

I turned on the TV war news
Just to look and wonder why
Thunder crashed and red flash-flowers
bloomed a nightmare in the sky

So I went down to the cafe
Just to string myself along
On the way i found some riches —
Played the jukebox, got this song

While I sat there a ragged man came —
Bummed a coffee, talked awhile
Told me stories full of wonder —
Left me laughing like a well-loved child.

released 1978

I’ve got planets in my palm — there’s a red smear on the sky
A star has just exploded somewhere behind my eyes
In the dead of night the city seems to break down into tribes
You stare at too much concrete — you forget the earth’s alive

Young men see visions and old men dream dreams
See them pluck bright pebbles out of circles in the stream
Life’s not always like they tell you in the fashion magazines
When I set eyes on wonders, I’ve got to wonder what they mean

Outside in the starshine you can see beyond the wall
So take a look and tell me, can you hear those black holes call?
Everything is thunder under the celestial waterfall
You get close enough to real things — you don’t need your self at all

released 1978

Also On:

Resume – 1981

Sunday night and it’s half past nine
Sunday night and it’s half past nine
Sunday night and it’s half past nine
I’m leaving one more town behind

Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
As we’re spit out into the jigsaw flow

Ahead where there should be the thickness of night
Stars are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light

Sky full of rippling cliffs and chasms
That shine like signs on the road to heaven…

I’ve been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains
And cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God.

So I carry these scars, precious and rare,
And tonight I feel like I’m made of air…

released 1978

Instrumental

released 1978

6. Laughter (3:39)

A laugh for the way my life has gone
A laugh for the love of a friend
A laugh for the fools in the eyes of the world
The love that will never end
Ha Ha Ha…

Let’s hear a laugh for the man of the world
Who thinks he can make things work
Tried to build the New Jerusalem
And ended up with New York
Ha Ha Ha…

A laugh for the sun redballing
Through the thermal inversion haze
A laugh for the nuclear good-time boys
Numbering all our days
Ha Ha Ha…

A laugh for the newsprint nightmare
A world that never was
Where the questions are all “why?”
And the answers are all “because.”
Ha Ha Ha…

A laugh for the dogs barking at our heels
They don’t know where we’ve been
A laugh for the dirty window pane
Hiding the love within
Ha Ha Ha…

Tapping our feet to an ancient tune
A laugh for the time gone by
A laugh for me and Kitty in the delivery room
Waiting for the child’s first cry
Ha Ha Ha…

June 28, 1976 – Ottawa, Canada

Also On:
Resume – 1981
Mummy Dust – 1981
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987

7. Bright Sky (4:03)

Geese come rushing on a river of wind
In the bright sky, bright sky

Wild music ripples like a wake behind
In the bright sky, bright sky

Go higher, go higher where the wind is all
In the bright sky, bright sky

Where the bullets get tired and fall
In the bright sky, bright sky

They fly out of vision taking part of my soul
In the bright sky, bright sky

Well, maybe together we can touch down whole
In the bright sky, bright sky

I never saw the colours in the northern dark
In the bright sky, bright sky

But there were all those people floating like Noah’s Ark
In the bright sky, bright sky

And we all rush away on a river of wind
In the bright sky, bright sky

But if i live i’ll be coming back again
In the bright sky, bright sky

September 18, 1977 – Fort Saint John, Yukon Territories

At the feast of fools
Humour can sometimes be cruel
But under certain conditions
You have to forget the rules

At the feast of fools
Everybody has a voice
Nobody goes to the bottom
Except by their own choice

It’s time for the silent criers to be held in love
It’s time for the ones who dig graves for them to get that final shove
It’s time for the horizons of the universe to be glimpsed even by the faceless kings of corporations
It’s time for chaos to win and walk off with the prize which turns out to be nothing

At the feast of fools
Outlaws can all come home
You can wear any disguise you want
But you’ll be naked past the bone

At the feast of fools
People’s hands weave light
There is a diamond wind
Flowering in the darkest night

It’s time for the silent criers to be held in love
It’s time for the ones who dig graves for them to get that final shove
It’s time for the horizons of the universe to be glimpsed even by the faceless kings of corporations
It’s time for chaos to win and walk off with the prize which turns out to be (a big fat) nothing.

It’s time for the singers of songs without hope to take a hard look and start from scratch again
It’s time for these headlights racing against inescapable dark to be just forgotten
It’s time for Harlequin to leap out of the future into the midst of a world of dancers
It’s time for us all to stand hushed in the cathedral of silence waiting at the river’s end.

November 6, 1977 – Burritt’s Rapids

When you ride out of the shining sky
To claim the ones who love you
Can I go with you?
Can I go with you?

When the angel shouts from the heart of the sun
And the living water flows down
Can I go with you?
Can I go with you?

When the earth and stars melt like ice in the spring
And a million voices sing praise
Can I go with you?
Can I go with you?

December 9, 1976 – Burritt’s Rapids

Also On:
Resume – 1981
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 2 – 2014

10. Nanzen Ji (4:45)

Nanzen Ji
Cooling wind
Mind swept clean like arctic sand

White stone lake
Crystal clear
I walk on the voices of nightingales

Pine-framed space
Tiger leaps
Emerald tea reflects the Lord

July 1977 – Morioka, Japan

Instrumental

released 2002



Released in 1978 this was Cockburn’s ninth album and contains the timeless tracks ‘Montreal Song’ and ‘Laughter’.

Album Info:

Thanks for aid and/or inspiration to: Jesus, Kitty, Harvey Cox The Secular City “Feast of Fools’), Farrago Folks, Michael Moorcock (The Cornelius Chronicles), Tony Silverthorn, Tom’s Cabin people, and all involved in the making of the album.

Musicians:
vocals, electric and acoustic guitars Bruce Cockburn
drums and percussion Bob DiSalle
electric guitar Eugene Martynec
flute Kathryn Moses
bodhran Martha Nagler
Background Vocals
Bright Sky and Laughter: Beverley Glenn Copeland, Marty Nagler, Tommy
Graham, Brent Tlcomb, Shingoose
Prenons La Mer: Ronny Abramson
Rainfall, Phone booth and Can I go with you: Beverly Glenn Copeland
Feast of Fools: Montreal Song: Shingoose

Words and music by Bruce Cockburn
Published by Golden Mountain Corp. (SOCAN)

Traduction by Marcel Mousette
All songs copyright © Golden Mountain Corp.
*used by permission

Recorded at Eastern Sound, Toronto April-May 1978
Produced by Eugene Martynec for True North Productions
Engineer Ken Frieson, assisted by Peter Holcomb
Album art by Bart Schoales for Harrison Vardley, Los Angeles
Model photographed by Fred Bird, Toronto

Remaster Info:
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.

November 19, 2002 – From Rounder Records: “Further Adventures Of” contains some of the most beautifully intricate acoustic guitar work and lyrical mysticism Bruce Cockburn has ever put on record. Originally released in 1978 and now re-mastered for this deluxe reissue, “Further Adventures Of” features standouts such as “Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hands,” “Red Ships Take Off in the Distance,” and “Feast of Fools.” An instrumental bonus track originally recorded for the record, “Mountain Call,” is also included. “Further Adventures Of” continues the spirited acoustic jazz of Cockburn’s previous recording and finds him in full, exploratory flight. Produced by Eugene Martynec.


Bruce Cockburn - Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws - 1979/2002

Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws

Bruce Cockburn - Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws - 1979/2002
Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws – 1979/2002

RELEASE DATE: 1979 / 2002
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

* Bonus tracks on the remastered CD version released by Rounder Records in 2002.

Centred on silence
Counting on nothing
I saw you standing on the sea
And everything was
Dark except for
Sparks the wind struck from your hair
Sparks that turned to
Wings around you
Angel voices mixed with seabird cries
Fields of motion
Surging outward
Questions that contain their own replies…

You were dancing
I saw you dancing
Throwing your arms toward the sky
Fingers opening
Like flares
Stars were shooting everywhere
Lines of power
Bursting outward
Along the channels of your song
Mercury waves flashed
Under your feet
Shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn…

December 20, 1978 – Ottawa, Canada

Also On:>
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 1 – 2014

Underneath the mask of the sulphur sky
A bunch of us were busy waiting,
Watching the people looking ill-at-ease,
Watching the fraying rope get closer to breaking

Women and men moved back and forth
In between effect and cause
And just beyond the range of normal sight
This glittering joker was dancing in the dragon’s jaws

Let me be a little of your breath
Moving over the face of the deep —
I want to be a particle of your light
Flowing over the hills of morning

The only sign you gave of who you were
When you first came walking down the road,
Was the way the dust motes danced around
Your feet in a cloud of gold

But everything you see’s not the way it seems —
Tears can sing and joy shed tears.
You can take the wisdom of this world
And give it to the ones who think it all ends here

Let me be a little of your breath
Moving over the face of the deep —
I want to be a particle of your light
Flowing over the hills of morning

released 1979

Also On:>
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 1 – 2014

Mon corps se pence
Ma main s’entends
Prends du gravier
Un morcean blanc de coquille

Pour un instant
Un mugissement
L’antique mer
Rempli cet espace qui a ete le mien

Lozanges mobiles
Des herbes flottantes
Un cri soudain
D’oiseau flamboie au firmament

Une troupe d’antilopes
Traverse l’horizon
Sabots scintillants comme du verre

Un rire sonne comme le cristal
Dans le ciel vide —
Quelqu’un danse comme une flamme

TRANSLATION: “Badlands Flashback”
The body stoops
The hand goes out
Picks up from the gravel
A fragment of white seashell

For a moment
A roaring
The ancient sea
Fills the space that just now was mine

Moving diamond-shapes
Grasses flowing
The sudden cry of a bird
Blazes all along the sky

A herd of antelope
Crosses the horizon
Hooves scintillating like glass

A laugh rings like crystal
In the empty sky —
Someone is dancing like a flame!

Easter 1979 – Ottawa, Canada

Sunday night and it’s half past nine
Sunday night and it’s half past nine
Sunday night and it’s half past nine
I’m leaving one more town behind

Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
Mirrors are showing the day’s last glow
As we’re spit out into the jigsaw flow

Ahead where there should be the thickness of night
Stars are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light

Sky full of rippling cliffs and chasms
That shine like signs on the road to heaven…

I’ve been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains
And cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God.

So I carry these scars, precious and rare,
And tonight I feel like I’m made of air…

August 27, 1978 – Calgary-Medicine Hat, Canada

After the rain in the streets light flows like blood
I can just taste salt on the humid wind

Here comes that gasoline
Spreading hungry rainbow over shiny black tar

I’m blown like smoke and blind as wind
Except for when your love breaks in

Maybe to those who love is given sight
To pierce the wall of seeming night
And know it pure beyond all imagining

Engine throb street cruise light bullet car flash
Hollow beauty night gleam oily river tension glass

Ultraflame! Glittering dust falling in slow motion
Clouds tumbling one over another into apparent emptiness

It’s like a big fist breaking down my door
I never felt such a love before

Maybe to those who love it’s given to hear
Music too high for the human ear
And clear as hydrogen to go singing

June 13 1979 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn Live 1990 / 2002

Sun’s up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I’m thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren’t half as frightening as they were before
But I’m thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I’ll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…

Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake
Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take
Pointing a finger at eternity
I’m sitting in the middle of this ecstasy

Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,
Polished as precise like the brain behind the gun
(Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…

Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay
One of these days we’re going to sail away,
going to sail into eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…

January 12,1979 – Ottawa, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Bruce Cockburn Live 1990 / 2002
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 2 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

I sneaked across the border — it was threatening rain —
So I could stand in this tunnel, waiting for the roaring train
And watch those black kids working out kung fu moves
If you don’t want to be the horses’ hoofprints you got to be the hooves

Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue

People getting ready behind all those rectangles of light
“Put on your grin mask, babe, you know we’re steppin out tonight”
You hear that sound, like hammers only small?
It’s what the people’s heads say when they beat them against the wall

Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue

Concrete vortex sucks down the wind
It’s howling like a blinded violin.
Oh — tongues of fire, come and kiss my brow
if I ever needed you, well I need you now

Hear that lonesome violin play
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue

New York

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Mist hangs above hills
Above mist hangs stone face of mountain
Above mountain face hangs a net of sky-
Crack! there are wings and they rip the net!

And the dance flows on
Everything flows toward the rim of that
Shining cup

Crossed sticks lie on earth
Between crossed sticks — pile of ash
Something rises on the wisp of smoke
Dog’s feet move by fast

And the dance flows on
Everything flows toward the rim of that
Shining cup

Through these channels/words
I want to touch you
Touch you deep down
Where you live
Not for power but
Because I love you
So
Love the Lord
And in Him love me too
And in Him go your way
And I’ll be right there with you
Leaving
No footprints when we go
No footprints when we go
Only where we’ve been, a faint and fading glow…

July 19, 1978 – Mainly Banff, Canada

released 2002

Instrumental

released 2002



Rounding out the 1970s and completing a trilogy of acoustic jazz/folk albums, that included “In The Falling Dark” and “Further Adventures Of”, Bruce Cockburn’s “Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws” stands as both an era-ending album and a cumulative release that nearly built in the strengths of its predecessors.
Featuring some of his finest guitar work ever the album was voted an “essential” recording by Acoustic Guitar Magazine, putting Cockburn in the prestigious company of such revered pickers as Django Reinhardt, Andrés Segovia, Bill Frisell and Mississippi John Hurt.
It also provided Cockburn with a commercial breakthrough on the strength of his buoyant Top 40 hit “Wondering Where The Lions Are”.

Album Info:

Produced by Eugene Martynec for True North Productions
Recorded by Gary Gray at Manta Sound, Toronto, May-June, 1979
Assistant: Frank Kitson

Musicians are:
Bruce Cockburn: Guitar, Chimes, Synthesizer, Dulcimer
Pat Godfrey: Piano and Marimba, Background Vocals (“Wondering Where the Lions Are”)
Robert Boucher: Bass
Bob DiSalle: Drums
Larry “Silky Fingers” Silvera: Bass and Background Vocals (“Wondering Where the Lions Are”)
Ben Bow: Drums and Background Vocals (“Wondering Where the Lions Are”)

Cover painting: Norval Morrisseau (1979)
Inside photograph: Christopher Dew
Art direction: Bart Schoales


Humans

Bruce Cockburn- Humans - 1980
Humans – 1980

RELEASE DATE: 1980 / 2003
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

Humans 2003 release includes a live version of Grim Travellers*

Ministers meet — work on the movement of goods
Also work on the movement of capital
Also work on the movement of human beings
As if we were so many cattle

Grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes you cry inside
Makes you angry and you don’t know why
Grim travellers in dawn skies

Twelve mercenaries got weapons primed
Gonna take that African nation in record time
You wonder why they bother, why not leave it alone
They say, “Every man wants to retire to a place he can call his own”

Those grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes them cry inside
Makes them angry and they don’t know why
Grim travellers in dawn skies

Redness, richer than a rose
Blooms against the backdrop of somebody’s white clothes
Bitter little girls and boys from the Red Army Underground
They’d blow away Karl Marx if he had the nerve to come around

They’re just grim travellers in dawn skies
See the beauty — makes them cry inside
Makes them angry and they don’t know why
They’re grim travellers in dawn skies

Down on the plain of 10,000 smokestacks
Trucks butt each other to establish dominance
The newspaper next to me leans over and says matter-of-factly
“Sacred mountains towers above meadows” – uh huh – and above us

Grim travellers in dawn skies
I see the beauty — makes me cry inside
It makes me angry and I don’t know why
We’re grim travellers in dawn skies

released 1980

Also On:
Humans – 2003 (live version)

Above the dark town
After the sun’s gone down
Two vapour trails cross the sky
Catching the day’s last slow goodbye
Black skyline looks rich as velvet
Something is shining
Like gold but better
Rumours of glory

Smiles mixed with curses
The crowd disperses
About whom no details are known
Each one alone yet not alone
Behind the pain/fear
Etched on the faces
Something is shining
Like gold but better
Rumours of glory

You see the extremes
Of what humans can be?
In that distance some tension’s born
Energy surging like a storm
You plunge your hand in
And draw it back scorched
Beneath it’s shining like
Gold but better
Rumours of glory

December 31, 1979 – Burritt’s Rapids

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Bruce Cockburn Live – 1990/2002
Humans – 2003 (live version)
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

I don’t mean to cling to you my friends
It’s just I hate the day to have to end
Never enough time to spend
I haven’t done enough for this to be the end

There must be more… more…
More songs more warmth
More love more life
Not more fear not more fame
Not more money not more games

There — you — coming through the crowd
Blue light silhouettes your head
I want to shout your name out loud
But I shout inside instead

There must be more… more…
More current more spark
More touch deep in the heart
Not more thoughtless cruelty
Not more being this lonely…

Don’t I hear them talking?
Don’t I know what they say?
I’m a fool for thinking
Things could be better than they were today

There must be more… more…
More growth more truth
More chains more loose
Not more pain not more walls
Not more living human voodoo dolls

February 14, 1980 – Toronto, Canada

So I find out what the luxury of hate is
As exciting maybe as doing the dishes
Face toward window — light received
You walk away to see a film
See some people see a man
Stab in throat twist in gut all too clear
Not too new — all been done before
Planet breathes exhaustion
Staggers on
Wnemy anger impotent gun grease
Too many thoughts
Too dogshit tired
One small step for freedom
From foregone conclusion

You get bigger as you go
No one told me — I just know
Bales of memory like boats in tow
You get bigger as you go

You get bigger as you go
Spent all day afraid to talk
Redneck children laugh out loud
I being target live and walk

You get bigger as you go
Telephone snarls “don’t touch me”
You move in waves like the midnight blues
You vector of this weird dis-ease

You get bigger as you go
News reruns — dawn comes rainbow
Pain takes shape of grimy window
You get bigger as you go

March 23, 1980 – Ottawa, Canada

Disharmony gives way
To mute helplessness
Not enough communication
Too much not expressed

It’s all to easy
To let go of hope
To think there’s nothing worth saving
And let it all go up in smoke

What about the the bond?
What about the mystical unity?
What about the bond
Sealed in the loving presence of the Father?

Disfunction
Of the institutions
That should give a frame to work in
Got to find our own solutions

Confusion
Pressure from all sides
Got to head right down the centre
In the love that will abide

What about the the bond?
What about the mystical unity?
What about the bond
Sealed in the loving presence of the Father?

Man and woman
Made to be one flesh
Nobody said it would be easy
But can we let go now and fail the test?

Now you could say
Life is full of moving on
But do you want the pain that’s
Already been spent
To all be wasted — c’mon

What about the the bond?
What about the mystical unity?
What about the bond
Sealed in the loving presence of the Father?

March 28, 1980 – Ottawa, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Sun went down looking like the eye of God
Behind icy mist and stark bare trees
Inside the dim empty cinema two guys in leather jackets
Glance at each other and shiver
“They never built these places with winter in mind”
Out the window down the gray road
You can see old walled monastery
Now become a barracks for the paramilitary police

I saw an old lady’s face once on a Japanese train
Half lit, rich with soft luminosity
She was dozing straight upright head bobbing almost imperceptibly
Wheels were playing fast in 9/8 time
Her husband’s friendly face suddenly folded up in a sneeze
Across the straight a volcano flew a white smoke flag of surrender

In a Roman street on a full moon night
I was sick and there was a young cop in a circle of yellow light
As we drew near he snapped the safety off his machine pistol
And slid a trembling finger to the trigger
I wanted to say something calming but couldn’t catch his eye
He didn’t want contact — he was trained to see movement
“Well don’t shoot me, man, I’m a graceful slow dancer
I’m just a dream to you not real at all”

I wonder if I’ll end up like Bernie in his dream
A displaced person in some foreign border town
Waiting for a train part hope part myth
While the station changes hands
Or just sitting at home growing tenser with the times
Or like that guy in “The Seventh Seal”
Watching the newly dead dance across the hills
Or wearing this leather jacket shivering with a friend
While the eye of God blazes at us like the sun…

Autumn 1979 – Pavia, Hokkaido, Paris

Also On:
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Ships moving into this cave of cloud
Out of the white light up river
At a certain point you can only die

High contrast resolution
Of wet rock and new snow
These bodies remind me
Of tire marks frozen in the mud

We thought we could change something
We helped them win
We changed the slogans
We get hunted again
When you’re the fighter
You’re the politicians tool
When you’re the fighter
You’re everybody’s fool

They move like bears through city streets
They’ve got a flag flying over every factory
I’d like to put a bullet through the world

Wagon full of logs with one flat tire
Armed men moving down through the bush
Up river at a certain point you can…
Ships… white light… only

November 25, 1979 – Gorizia-Milan

8. Tokyo (3:25)

They’re getting prepared to haul a car out of the river
Noise and smoke and concrete seem to be going on forever
Grinding gears and drivers getting high on exhaust
I’m thinking about the water down below and what got lost

Pachinko jingle and space torpedo beams
Comic book violence and escaping steam
Grey suited business men pissing against the wall —
Cut to crumbling guardrail, slow motions car fall

Oh Tokyo — I never can sleep in your arms
Mind keeps on ringing like a fire alarm
Me and all these other dice bouncing around in the cup
Did you have to show me that accident scene
Didn’t I get enough shaking up?
Still I’m gonna miss you…

Dragon of good fortune struggles with trickster fox
Energy and patience and the power of the buck
Tonight I’m flying headlong
To meet the dark red edge of dawn
I know somebody will be crying
And somebody will be gone

Oh Tokyo — I never can sleep in your arms
Mind keeps on ringing like a fire alarm
Me and all these other dice bouncing around in the cup
Did you have to show me that accident scene
Didn’t I get enough shaking up?
Still I’m gonna miss you…

September 15, 1979 – Tokyo

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Fascist architecture of my own design
Too long been keeping my love confined
You tore me out of myself alive

Those fingers drawing out blood like sweat
While the magnificent facades crumble and burn
The billion facets of brilliant love
The billion facets of freedom turning in the light

Bloody nose and burning eyes
Raised in laughter to the skies
I’ve been in trouble but I’m ok
Been through the wringer but I’m ok
Walls are falling and I’m ok
Under the mercy and I’m ok

Gonna tell my old lady
Gonna tell my little girl
There isn’t anything in the world
That can lock up my love again

May 5,1980 – Denver, Colorado

Also On:>
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1997
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Something jewelled slips away
Round the next bend with a splash
Laughing at the hands I hold out
Only air within their grasp
All you can do is praise the razor
For the fineness of the slash

‘Til the Rose above the sky
Opens
And the light behind the sun
Takes all

Gutless arrogance and rage
Burn apart the best of tries
You carry the weight of inherited sorrow
From your first day till you die
Toward that hilltop where the road
Forever becomes one with the sky

‘Til the Rose above the sky
Opens
And the light behind the sun
Takes all

Ozone on the midnight wind
Got me thinking of the sea
And the mercies of the currents that brought
Me to you and you to me
And in the silence at the heart of things
Where all true meetings come to be

‘Til the Rose above the sky
Opens
And the light behind the sun
Takes all

August 1979 – Ottawa

Also On:>
Rumours Of Glory – 1985

11. Grim Travellers (live version) 2003 release



Ranked by many as Bruce Cockburn’s best album, Humans is a watershed release in the acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter’s stellar career. Humans represented the first of Cockburn’s more electric, rock-oriented releases, after the trilogy of acoustic jazz folk recordings that culminated in 1979’s Dancing in the Dragon’s laws. The latter produced the reggae-flavored “Wondering Where The Lions are,” which became a Top 40 hit in both Canada and the United States. Where “Lions” featured the rhythm section of Jamaican star Leroy Sibbles ‘group. Humans’ anthemic “Rumours of Glory,” with its bouncy bass, added the reggae legend himself on backup vocals. Cockburn, wielding an electric guitar and backed by such new band members as violonist Hugh Marsh and keyboardist Jon Goldsmith, infused the entire album with a tougher, more uptempo sound.

Album Info:

Words and music by Bruce Cockburn
© Golden Mountain Music (SOCAN)
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission
Produced by Eugene Martynec for True North Productions

The Musicians Are:
Bruce Cockburn: Guitar and Vocals
Dennis Pendrith: Bass
Jon Goldsmith: Keyboards
Hugh Marsh: Violin
Patricia Cullen: Synthesizer
Pat LaBarbera: Reeds
Bob DiSalle: Drums
Kathy Moses, Beverly Glen-Copeland, Rachel Paiement*: Background Vocals

The Musicians on “Rumours of Glory” Are:
Bruce Cockburn: Guitar and Vocals
Tony Hibbery: Bass
Bernie Pitters: Keyboards
Ben Bow: Drums
Brian Leonard: Percussion
Leroy Sibbles, Mickey Edwards, Murray McLauchian: Background Vocals

*Rachel Paiemont appears courtesy of A & M Records.

Engineered by Gary Gray
Assisted by Dave Taylor
Mastered by George Marino, Sterling Sound, NY
Remastered by Vlado Meller, Sony Music Studio Operations, NY
Recorded at Manta Sound, Toronto July-August 1980
Art Direction: Bart Schoales
Photography: Roberto Masotti, Milano
Invaluable Assistance and General Bad Influence: Stuart Raven-Hill


Bruce Cockburn - Resume - 1981

Resume

Bruce Cockburn - Resume - 1981
Resume – 1981

RELEASE DATE: 1981
PURCHASE:

Compilation album
with 1 new * song

1. Silver Wheels

I was up all night, socializing
Trying to keep the latent depression from crystalizing
Now the sun is lurking just behind the Scarborough horizon

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

I took in Yonge Street at a glance
Heard the punkers playing
Watched the bikers dance
Everybody wishing they could go to the south of France

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

Hey look at me now
See the shape I’m in
It’s taken me so long to catch on to what’s going on
Inside this skin
When two lovers really love there’s nothing there
But this suddenly compact universe
Skin and breath and hair

I watched the all night TV show
In the all night bar
I drove all the people home
I was the one with the car

Now I’m sitting here alone and sleepless
and wondering where you are
And wishing you were here
On the coldest night of the year

released 1981

Also On:
Mummy Dust – 1981
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Inner City Front – 2002

3. Can I Go With You
4. Laughter
5. Water Into Wine
6. Mama Just Wants To Barrelhouse All Night Long
7. Lord Of The Starfields
8. Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand
9. Dialogue With The Devil




Bruce Cockburn - Mummy Dust - 1981

Mummy Dust

Bruce Cockburn - Mummy Dust - 1981
Mummy Dust – 1981

RELEASE DATE: 1981
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

Compilation album
with 2 new songs *

1. Silver Wheels
2. Loner
3. Joy Will Find a Way
4. Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon
5. It’s Going Down Slow

I was up all night, socializing
Trying to keep the latent depression from crystalizing
Now the sun is lurking just behind the Scarborough horizon

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

I took in Yonge Street at a glance
Heard the punkers playing
Watched the bikers dance
Everybody wishing they could go to the south of France

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

Hey look at me now
See the shape I’m in
It’s taken me so long to catch on to what’s going on
Inside this skin
When two lovers really love there’s nothing there
But this suddenly compact universe
Skin and breath and hair

I watched the all night TV show
In the all night bar
I drove all the people home
I was the one with the car

Now I’m sitting here alone and sleepless
and wondering where you are
And wishing you were here
On the coldest night of the year

released 1981

Also On:
Resume – 1981
Mummy Dust – 1981
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Inner City Front – 2002

7. Laughter
8. Red Brother Red Sister
9. You Don’t Have to Play the Horses

It could have been me put the thorns in your crown
Rooted as I am in a violent ground
How many times have I turned your promise down
Still you pour out your love
Pour out your love

I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done
Jesus, thank-you joyous Son

You entered a life like ours to give us back our own
You wanted us like you, as choosers not clones
You offered up your flesh and death was overthrown
Now salvation is ours,
Salvation is ours

I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done
Jesus, thank-you joyous Son

So I’m walking this prison camp world
I long for a glimpse of the new world unfurled
The chrysalis cracking and moisten winds uncurl
Like in the vision John saw
The vision John saw

I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done
Jesus, thank-you joyous Son

released 1981

Also On:
In The Falling Dark – 2002

11. All the Diamonds in the World



First released in 1981 and features classic songs like the ‘Coldest Night Of The Year’, ‘All The Diamonds In The World’. And ‘Dweller By A Dark Stream’.

Album Info:
All songs written by Bruce Cockburn/All songs published by Golden Mountain Music Corp.
All songs produced by Gene Martynec for True North Productions
Compilation engineered by Gary Gray at Manta Sound, Toronto April 1981
Assisted by Dave Taylor
Mastered by George Graves, The Lacquer Channel, Toronto
Package Artwork & Concept: Bart Schoales
Front Photograph Jorge Zontal
Back Cover Photo: George Whiteside
Special thanks to Bruce Meek


Bruce Cockburn - Inner City Front - 1981/2002

Inner City Front

Bruce Cockburn - Inner City Front - 1981/2002
Inner City Front – 1981 / 2002

RELEASE DATE: 1981 / 2002
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North (deluxe version)

* Bonus tracks on the remastered CD version released by Rounder Records

Woman cry — chase man down street crying “No Chuckie, no, please don’t”
Another girl comes they run along St. Andrew, turn south on Kensington
Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken packer’s
By the time I reach the corner they’ve all vanished
Just a deaf kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt

You pay your money and you take your chance
When you’re dealing with love and romance

Down the alley past the fire escape a woman is talking on the telephone
Kitchen light spills out, laughter riding on its beam
In the maze of moebius streets we’re trying to amuse ourselves to death
Under the deep sky that’s squatting so close over us tonight
You’d think it was trying to hatch us
The numb and confused
The battered and bruised
The counters of cost
And the star-crossed

You pay your money and you take your chance
When you’re dealing with love and romance

Confused and solo in the spawning ground
I watch the confusion of friends all numb with love
Moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night-long conversations,
of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices
In spite of themselves, graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window
Stay or leave, give or withold, hesitate or leap
Each step splashing sparks of red pain in every direction
And through it all, somehow, this willingness that asks no questions

You pay your money and you take your chance
When you’re dealing with love and romance

released 1981

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1997
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Isn’t it hard
To be the one who has to give advice?
Isn’t it hard
To be the strong one?

I see the skyline blurred through the plastic on your back screen door
Not unlike the faces of the people who keep turning up in the places we go
The ones we’d never see if things weren’t going so well
When I was a torn jacket hanging on the barbed wire
You cut me free
And sewed me up and here I am

Isn’t it hard
To be the one whose phone rings all day everyday?
Isn’t it hard
To be the strong one?

Mouths move without vision — without regard for consequences
Eyes fill with memories poisoned by intimate knowledge of failure to love
Sometimes, sometimes, doesn’t the light seem to move so far away?
You help your sisters, you help your old lovers,
you help me but who do you cry to?

‘Cause isn’t it hard
To be the one who gathers everybody’s tears?
Isn’t it hard
To be the strong one?

released 1981

Blue billboard on the roof next door
Makes a square of light on the kitchen floor
Smokes rises from a cigarette
There’s a dull glisten where the table’s wet
Soft breath rises from the bed
A thousand question marks over my head

Turn on the tube but there’s nothing new
The usual panic in red, white and blue
“Military advisors” marching in the square
Knife-sharp trouser creases slicing air
Private armies on suburban lawns
Shoulders braced against the tidal dawn
All’s quiet on the inner city front
I don’t know why I should but I feel content

Bell in the fire station tower
Rings out the measure of the racing hours
I slip through the door to the roof outside
To gaze at the sign hanging in the sky
That sailor on the billboard looks so self-possessed
Doesn’t have a thing to forgive or forget
All’s quiet on the inner city front.

released 1981- Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Instrumental

released 1981

Neon flame on the window of an upstairs room
Helicopter beats across the face of the moon
Got a hunger that sprawls like this galaxy
Want to wrap my arms around you — draw you right inside me

I want to go walking
With you Judy
Through the movie
Of the world

No matter what I do I feel your presence everywhere
I’ll be just standing around and your scent comes at me
Out of nowhere
I see your face on the wall — in the magazine too
Next thing you know the billboard out my window will be you

I want to go walking
With you Judy
Through the movie
Of the world

Today was a dog licking crap in the gutter of the street
Tonight is a dancer oscillating on weightless feet
So the fortune teller said you wouldn’t end up with me
Last I heard only God gets to say what has to be

I want to walking
With you Judy
Through the movie
Of the world

released 1981

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Midnight flight
Fullmoon light
Laughter in the air
It’s a party all right
Slate-blue clouds
Iridescent sea
I’m heading for you
And you’re headed for me

and we dance and we dance
and we dance…

Down there in the realm of power
Somebody’s manicured hands
Play the Ace of Influence
Against the Jack of Demands
I reach of the deck —
Draw the seven of hearts —
Doesn’t mean the world
But it’s a better place to start

and we dance and we dance
and we dance…

Paradox and contrast
Variety and change
History repeats
But it’s never the same
We’ve got this time
We’ve got this rhythm
Till the whole thing comes apart
Like light through a prism

and we dance and we dance
and we dance…

released 1981

7. Justice (4:49)

What’s been done in the name of Jesus?
What’s been done in the name of Buddha?
What’s been done in the name of Islam?
What’s been done in the name of man?
What’s been done in the name of liberation?
And in the name of civilization?
And in the name of race?
And in the name of peace?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Can you tell me how much bleeding
It takes to fill a word with meaning?
And how much, how much death
It takes to give a slogan breath?
And how much, how much, how much flame
Gives light to a name
For the hollow darkness
In which nations dress?

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

Everybody’s seen the things they’ve seen
We all have to live with what we’ve been
When they say charity begins at home
They’re not just talking about a toilet and a telephone
Got to search the silence of the soul’s wild places
For a voice that can cross the spaces
These definitions that we love create —
These names for heaven, hero, tribe and state

Everybody
Loves to see
Justice done
On somebody else

released 1981

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Way out on the rim of the galaxy
The gifts of the Lord lie torn
Into whose charge the gifts were given
Have made it a curse for so many to be born
This is my trouble —
These were my fathers
So how am I supposed to feel?
Way out on the rim of the broken wheel

Water of life is going to flow again
Changed from the blood of heroes and knaves
The word mercy’s going to have a new meaning
When we are judged by the children of our slaves
No adult of sound mind
Can be an innocent bystander
Trial comes before truth’s revealed
Out here on the rim of the broken wheel

You and me — we are the break in the broken wheel
Bleeding wound that will not heal

Lord, spit on our eyes so we can see
How to wake up from this tragedy

Way out on the rim of the broken wheel
Bleeding wound that will not heal
Trial comes before truth’s revealed
So how am I supposed to feel?
This is my trouble —
Can’t be an innocent bystander
In a world of pain and fire and steel
Way out on the rim of the broken wheel

released 1981

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn Live – 1990/2002
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

9. Loner (7:38)

Down at the bus station
Shark grins and sandpaper conversation
Men’s faces women’s bodies on the magazine stand
And a headline about Sarajevo and Tehran

They are radiant angels, they are earthly slaves
They are predators moving in their endless days
Days of striving, nights of novocaine
Never going to bring them freedom from their pain

I’m a loner
With a loner’s point of view
I’m a loner
And now I’m in love with you

Wild shadows, acid verbs
Eyelids opening dans mon coeur
Tu me touche comme la pression
Des etoiles sur les tenebres*

In the elevator and the empty hall
How am I ever going to hear you when you call
I’m always living and I always die
on the event horizon of your eyes

I’m a loner
With a loner’s point of view
I’m a loner
And now I’m in love with you

released 1981

Also On:
Mummy Dust – 1981

I was up all night, socializing
Trying to keep the latent depression from crystalizing
Now the sun is lurking just behind the Scarborough horizon

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

I took in Yonge Street at a glance
Heard the punkers playing
Watched the bikers dance
Everybody wishing they could go to the south of France

And you’re not even here
On the coldest night of the year.

Hey look at me now
See the shape I’m in
It’s taken me so long to catch on to what’s going on
Inside this skin
When two lovers really love there’s nothing there
But this suddenly compact universe
Skin and breath and hair

I watched the all night TV show
In the all night bar
I drove all the people home
I was the one with the car

Now I’m sitting here alone and sleepless
and wondering where you are
And wishing you were here
On the coldest night of the year

released 1981

Also On:
Resume – 1981
Mummy Dust – 1981
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Inner City Front – 2002

Shaman clambers up the world dream tree
Looking for clues about what is to be
Chants and trances give his spirit wings for flight
Wings still shackled to history
The chain of events is broken so easily
Oh, let me rest in the place of light

Skull-drum skin stretched tight
Sends out ripples in the gathering night
The deepest darkness breeds the brightest light
Music rising from the bones of saints
From the pungent smell of sad sweet poems and paintings
Oh, let me rest in the place of light

God waves a thought like you’d wave your hand
And the light goes on forever
Through the seasons and through the seas
The light goes on forever
Through the burning and the seeding
Through the joining and the parting
The light goes on forever

Gypsy searches through the cards for clues
Alchemist searches for eternal youth
Human reaching almost makes it but not quite
The soul strikes out at what the wind blows by
You live and it hurts you, you give up you die
Oh, let me rest in the place of light

Fugitives in the time before the dawn
Backed up to the wall with weapons drawn
Like mounted nomads always ready for a fight
This creature that thinks and so can fake its own being
Lightless mind’s eye not much good for seeing
Oh, let me rest in the place of light

God waves a thought like you’d wave your hand
And the light goes on forever
Through the people and through the walls
The light goes on forever
Through who obeys and who does not
Through who gets rich and who gets caught
The light goes on forever

Uptight lawyer on Damascus road
Becomes a nexus where the light explodes
Concentrated, overpowering sight
Two way whirlpool churning up all time
Infinity stoops to touch the human mind
Oh, let me rest in the place of light

God waves a thought like you’d wave your hand
And the light goes on forever
Through the buildings and through the hills
The light goes on forever
Through the struggles and the games
Through the night’s empty doorframes
The light goes on forever
March 25, 1980 – Ottawa

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



For Bruce Cockburn, the months leading up to Inner City Front’s 1981 release had been fraught with change: his marriage of 10 years dissolved, leading him to switch from country to city life. Taking an an apartment in downtown Toronto, he assembled a band of crack musicians and adopted a more rugged, urban sound. Gone were most traces of the Gentle Folkie of the late 1960s and even the Mystic Christian of the 70’s. In their place was Bruce Cockburn of the 80s – highly politicized and sporting an electric guitar.

Album Info:

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn
© 1981 Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN)
All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission
Produced by Bruce Cockburn for True North Productions
Associate Producer: Bernie Finkelstein

The musicians are:
Bruce Cockburn: Guitar and Vocals
Memo Acevedo: Percussion
Bob DiSalle: Drums
Dennis Pendrith: Bass guitar
Jon Goldsmith: Keyboards
Hugh Marsh: Violin and Mandolin
Kathryn Moses: Reeds and Background Vocals
Murray McLauchlan: Background Vocals on “Wanna Go Walking”
Ruhollah Khomeini: Additional Percussion on “Justice”
M. Kaddafi: Additional Background Vocals on “The Strong One”

Engineered by Gary Gray
Mastered by George Marino, Sterling Sound, NY
Remastered by Vlado Meller, Sony Music Studio Operations, NY
Recorded at Manta Sound, Toronto, April-June 1981

Art Direction: Bart Schoales
Back Cover Photo: George Whiteside

Special thanks to Shorewood Packaging, Toronto
Thanks for the help, Jimmy!

Remaster Info:
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 19 November 2002.

19 November 2002 – From Rounder Records: Bruce Cockburn self-produced the nine tracks of rock, reggae, jazz and folk-fusions that form “Inner City Front”, originally released in 1981. Now re-mastered with two bonus tracks, it could be called the artist’s Toronto album since it reflects so strongly his move to the city and his embrace of both its attractions and tensions. “Inner City Front” contains some of the most carefree love songs of his career, including a B-52s-like rocker “Wanna Go Walking,” the flute-filled “And We Dance,” and the infectious “Coldest Night of the Year,” which finally joins the album for which it was originally intended. “The Light Goes On Forever” is also included as a bonus track, having been previously available only as a B-side. Produced by Bruce Cockburn.


Bruce Cockburn - The Trouble With Normal - 1983

The Trouble With Normal

Bruce Cockburn - The Trouble With Normal  - 1983
The Trouble With Normal

RELEASE DATE: 1983 / 2003
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

* Bonus tracks on the remastered CD version released by Rounder Records in 2002.

Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage
Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage
Suddenly it’s repression, moratorium on rights
What did they think the politics of panic would invite?
Person in the street shrugs — “Security comes first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Callous men in business costume speak computerese
Play pinball with the Third World trying to keep it on its knees
Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea
And the local Third World’s kept on reservations you don’t see
“It’ll all go back to normal if we put our nation first”
But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse

Fashionable fascism dominates the scene
When ends don’t meet it’s easier to justify the means
Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream
As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream
Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse

June 30, 1981 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Sun climbs toward high noon,
Glints metallic off the bowl of the spoon
Sliding through the air toward parted lips
Watch the expression when the straight taste hits
Face crumples, tongue’s quickly withdrawn
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

Oh sweet fantasia of the safe home
Where nobody has to scrape for honey at the bottom of the comb
Where every actor understands the scene
And nobody ever means to be mean
Catch it in a dream, catch it in a song
Seek it on the street, you find the candy man’s gone
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

In the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study
Pimping dreams of riches for everybody
“Something for nothing, new lamps for old
And the streets will be platinum, never mind gold”
Well, hey, pass it on
Misplaced your faith and the candy man’s gone
I hate to tell you but the candy man’s gone

December 3, 1981 – NYC, Boston

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987

Tokyo jetlag evening walking
Out of my throat appears this chuckle
A true 20th Century sound
A little crazed and having no tonal centre

The echoes of this laugh fade for a long time
Snaking among those jumbled pedestrians
Following that struggling Cedric taxicab
Sliding over the seeming infinity of white light and neon

With no warning, mind’s eye winks like a lifespan
And opens again on memory flash of prairie Indian
Dancers — they’re on a stage, all jigging motion
And flare of bright feathers, surrounded by white faces
Floating on a sea of mind
Hoop dancer struts in front — drum and voices blend with endless rain

There’s a time line
Something like vertical, like perpendicular
Cutting through figures shuffling on horizontal plane
Cutting through the survival pride of the dancers
Through the guilty, sentimental warmth of the crowd
Through to some essence common to us, to original man
To perhaps descendants numberless … or few

Where it intersects the space at hand
This shaman with the hoops stands
Aligned like living magnetic needle between deep past and looming future
Butterfly pierced on each drum beat, wing beat, static spark, storm front, energy circle delineated by leaping limbs

1st man last man dancing man man dancing
Hoops in hand trampled grass circle spreading
Voices flame above crazy coyote heartbeat drum

I see sunrise on the plains big river at dusk
Perpetual pillar of dust on prairie rim and always overhead
those wings — circling, turning

He’s the earth he’s the egg he’s the eagle always circling
Always turning — always comes back to the centre

Hoops whirling, now transparent feet touch down on anaconda
Streets and on the next leap dissolve slowly into the moving lights

Rainbow steps, jerking universe
Goodbye, man-in-time
And just beyond the clatter and cars the last long notes of wild voices ring
Like Roland’s horn

September 5, 1979 – Tokyo

Body lines fluid in static heat
Thoughts buzzing like flies around meat
Land here — land there —
Quick circles in the air
I’m riding smooth but just a little slow
Waiting for the moon to show

Leather-faced old men by the cafe wall
Kids in the surf splashing with a soccer ball
I gaze through curved lens
Trying to identify the sky’s end
Little spots on the horizon into gunboats grow
Waiting for the moon to show

Might be a party — might be a war
When those faceless sailors come ashore
Speculation is a waste of time
You want to go have a glass of wine?
Whatever’s coming, there’s no place else to go
Waiting for the moon to show

September 12, 1981 – Lauzarote

Away from the river
Away from the smoke of the burning
Fearful survivors
Subject of government directives
One sad guitar note
Echoes of the wall of the jungle
Seen from the air they’re just targets with nowhere to run to

Children of rape
Raised on malnutrition
Men in camouflage
Filled with a sense of mission
Light through the wire mesh
Plays on the president’s pistol
Like the gleam of a bead of sweat in the flow of a candle

Hear the cry in the tropic night
Should be the cry of love but it’s a cry of fright
Some people never see the light
Till it shines through bullet holes

The tropic moon
Bathing a beach fringed with palms
Glitters on shells
And beach tar and coke cans
And on the night-coloured boat
And on the barrels of guns
In the rage in the hearts of these men is the seed of a wind they call
Kingdom Come

Hear the cry…

June 4, 1982 – Sardegna

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Moon across the valley
Squatting on the roof
Of the dirty gray bank
Like a cop with no proof

We were lying in bliss
Love was cooling into sleep
There was a dream on the horizon
And a punch-up in the street

We were lying on the mountain
by the satellite dish
Humming with the tremors of
Every envy, rage and wish
Orchids and radar
In the dazzling night
The stars were all racing like satellites

Going up against chaos
Going up against chaos
Two hearts full of tough love

We were bodies of light
Like we’ll be someday
The sirens and the curses
Were light years away

We were Lot on the mountain
We were Noah on the Ark
Flying hand in hand
From the doghowl dark

Going up against chaos
Going up against chaos
Two hearts full of tough love

August 8, 1981 – Toronto

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – 1985

Don’t need the everlasting trade expansion
Don’t need the cold white heroin breath
Don’t need Pizzarro or the Inquisition
No berserk worship of a hero’s death
Don’t need reactionary politicians
Don’t need the gunfight at the O.K.
Don’t need no Reverend Paisley hate-masturbation
Don’t need no Jihad or no IRA

We need to put our hearts together
Set up a rhythm in combination
And if we put our hearts together
We get a rhythm that will shake creation

Who needs supremacy of pink people
There’s no such thing as a pure racial strain
It takes all colours to make a rainbow
Takes every part to make a working brain
The whole of history is a growing together
If you want pure, you’re gonna have caves again
Anyway who needs a geek like the Grand Dragon
So full of shit his breath makes acid rain

We need to put our hearts together
Set up a rhythm in combination
And if we put our hearts together
We get a rhythm that will shake creation

Woman-in-kitchen, man-in-palace
Worshipping the performance of the phallus
Gaming for power till their hearts grow callous
As if a human’s just an animal with malice
Limp lance, phallocrat, finger on the trigger
Go ahead and stay small while everything gets bigger
It’s a bully’s game and I don’t want to play
Why don’t you think about the better way

We need to put our hearts together
Set up a rhythm in combination
And if we put our hearts together
We get a rhythm that will shake creation

January 3, 1983 – St. Vincent

I need a helmet to protect my head
I need earphones to hear what gets said
I need a miracle to keep this little thread from snapping

I know a lot about alienated man
But we’ve all heard as much about that as we can stand
It’s just what happens when you let the time span catch you napping

Two forward and one back
Blind fingers groping for the right track
What’s to do when a stab and a pat on the back look like the same thing?

Civilization and its discontents
When all’s been said and all the money spent
Trying to beat the system of the world’s events
Gets you nowhere.

Tired faces with the bus stop blues
Man on a bench with a blanket of news
The young Jamaican joking with the old Jew about women

So many people so lost you feel sorry
But too much pathos just makes you angry
And even though I know who loves me I’m not that much less lost

Black outline, sliding gray scale
Subtle variations of dark to pale
Pearl sky raining light like hail, come on and pierce me
Raining light like a vision of the holy grail, come on and pierce me

Civilization and its discontents
When all’s been said and all the money spent
Trying to beat the system of the world’s events
Gets you nowhere.

July 2, 1981 – Toronto

Stare into the moonlight
Silver fingers press my eyes
Probing in my heart with longing

These footprints by the sea’s edge
Disappearing grain by grain
Lose their form but keep their substance

As the waves roar on the beach like a squadron of F16’s
Ebb and flow like the better days they say this world has seen

Government by outrage
Hunger camps and shanty towns
Dignity and love still holding

This bluegreen ball in black space
Filled with beauty even now
battered and abused and lovely

And the waves roar on the beach like a squadron of F16’s
Ebb and flow like the better days they say this world has seen

Each one in our own heart
Desperate to know where we stand
Planet of the clowns in wet shoes

September 9, 1981 – Tenerife

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

Instrumental

Languid mandala of the ceiling fan
moving air like a slow stroking hand
music drifts in like the embassy
of afternoon’s sullen sensuality
i wanna dance with you

African voices in an opium dream
magenta waves on a sea of bluegreen
i wanna dance with you til the sky gets clear
dance til the calluses fall off my ears
i wanna dance with you

Hours get shorter as the days go by
you never get to stop and open your eyes
trouble with the nation, trouble with the relations
where you gonna go for some illumination?
i wanna dance with you

Autumn ’81 – Toronto



Bruce Cockburn’s political activism is immediately apparent on “The Trouble With Normal”, an album bristling with anger and outrage.

Album Info:

Words and music by Bruce Cockburn
Published by Golden Mountain Corp. (BMI)
Traduction by Marcel Mousette
Recorded at studio Manta Sound, Toronto, September 1982 – January 1983
Engineer: Gary Gray
Mastering: Sterling Sound, New York
Produced by True North Productions

The Musicians are:
Bruce Cockburn: Guitar and voices
Bob DiSalle: Drums
Jon Goldsmith: Keyboards
Hugh Marsh: Violin and mandolin
Dennis Pendrith: Bass and stick
Dick Smith: Percussion
Background vocals on ” Put Our Hearts Together”: Sharon Lee Williams, Shawne Jackson, Collina Phillips

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn ©1983 Golden Mountain Music Corp. Used by permission.

Art direction: Micheal Wurstlin
Photography: George Whiteside
Direction: The Finkelstein Management Company Limited
151 John Street, Suite 301
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 2T2
(416)596-8696 Telex: 065-24566

Remaster Info:
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, 19 November 2002.

19 November 2002 – From Rounder Records: Originally released in 1983, “The Trouble With Normal” is yet another gem from the Bruce Cockburn catalog. Explicit politics dominate the record, led by the weighty title track, whose lyrics, like those of so many of Cockburn’s political songs, still ring true today. This remastered version of the album contains two bonus tracks, both recorded during the sessions for the album: the romantic “Wanna Dance With You,” a reggae number, and “Cala Luna,” a moody instrumental. “The Trouble with Normal” is a rich testament to Bruce Cockburn’s timeless, sophisticated sound-and worldview. Produced by Eugene Martynec.


Bruce Cockburn - Stealing Fire - 1984 / 2003

Stealing Fire

Bruce Cockburn - Stealing Fire - 1984 / 2003
Stealing Fire – 1984 / 2003

RELEASE DATE: 1984
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

* bonus tracks on the remastered 2003 reissue

This album was re-released on vinyl, 2 November 2010, through True North Records.

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

These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This vibrant skin — this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime —
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight —
Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time
And we’re lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time

September 1983 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Maybe the poet is gay
But he’ll be heard anyway

Maybe the poet is drugged
But he won’t stay under the rug

Maybe the voice of the spirit
In which case you’d better hear it

Maybe he’s a woman
Who can touch you where you’re human

Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see

Don’t let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it

Put him up against the wall
Shoot him up with pentothal

Shoot him up with lead
You won’t call back what’s been said
Put him in the ground
But one day you’ll look around

There’ll be a face you don’t know
Voicing thoughts you’ve heard before

Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see

Don’t let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it

January 1982 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn Live – 1990 / 2002
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Dance music from the corner bar
Over dogs barking at a passing car
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

Hot night — streets are full of life
Carnival faces in rembrandt light
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

Half moon shining through the blind
Paints a vision of a different kind
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

Wet limbs striped with silver light
Locked together at the centre of the night
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

Night bloom filling up the room
With the salt and musk of lovers’ rich perfume
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

Animal grins and wild shining eyes
Laughing and shouting we’re a hundred storeys high
And your hair tumbles down like sahara gold

July 1983 – Toronto, Canada

Step outside — take a look at the stars
Catch a glimpse of the way things are —
Making contact…

Smell of sweet fresh oil on skin
When you move on me like the tide coming in —
Making contact…

So many ways to understand
One for every woman and man
Been that way since the world began

I hear the drumming of the surf and I have to dance
Stepping to the rhythm of circumstance —
Making contact…

I feel so huge — I feel so small
I feel so good I want to swallow it all —
Making contact…

Making contact
Swimming in an ocean of love

Making contact
Swimming in an ocean of love

We move together like the waves
Swimming in an ocean of love

Every night and every day
Swimming in an ocean of love

One world — one human race
Swimming in an ocean of love

One kiss from a smiling face
Swimming in an ocean of love

See that sign coming into view
Swimming in an ocean of love

Mother sea welcomes you
Swimming in an ocean of love

Making contact…

January 1984 – Tobago

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987

Crashing in the kitchen, noises in the hall
Roll over and go back to sleep — it’s just a dream, that’s all
So how come the window’s broken?
What caused the glass to fall?
And who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen wall?

Police arrive — muddy up the floor
Dig out half the plaster — it’s a .38 for sure
Kick the neighbour’s door in
Saying better tell it all
Who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen wall?

Blaster on the back porch shaking up the lane
They’re drinking gin and joking — laughter falling down like rain
Everybody wears a halo
Never saw nothing at all
So who put that bullet hole in Peggy’s kitchen wall

July 1983 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

Rising like lightspill from this sleeping town
Like the light in a lover’s eyes
Rising from the hearts of the sleepers all around
All those dreamers trying to light the sky

Burning — all night long
Burning — at the gates of dawn
Singing — near and far
Singing — to raise the morning star

Rising like lightning in the pregnant air
It’s electric — I can feel its might
I can feel it crackling in my nails and hair —
Makes me feel like i’m dancing on feet of light

Burning — all night long
Burning — at the gates of dawn
Singing — near and far
Singing — to raise the morning star

Singing for the yellow and the brown and the black
For the red and the white people, too
Dovetailing strong points with the things we lack
Singing for the people like me and you

Burning — all night long
Burning — at the gates of dawn
Singing — near and far
Singing — to raise the morning star

July 1983 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn Live – 1990 / 2002
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014

7. Nicaragua (4:47)

Breakfast woodsmoke on the breeze —
On the cliff the U.S. Embassy
Frowns out over Managua like Dracula’s tower.
The kid who guards Fonseca’s tomb
Cradles a beat-up submachine gun —
At age fifteen he’s a veteran of four years of war
Proud to pay his dues
He knows who turns the screws
Baby face and old man’s eyes

Blue lagoon and flowering trees —
Bullet-packed masaya streets
Full of the ghosts of the heroes of Monimbo
Women of the town laundry
Work and gossip and laugh at me —
They don’t believe I’ll ever send them the pictures I took.
For every scar on a wall
There’s a hole in someone’s heart
Where a loved one’s memory lives

In the flash of this moment
You’re the best of what we are —
Don’t let them stop you now
Nicaragua

Sandino in his tom mix hat
Gazes from billboards and coins
“Sandino vive en la lucha por la paz”
Sandino of the shining dream
Who stood up to the U.S. marines —
Now Washington panics at U2 shots of “Cuban-style” latrines
They peek from planes, eavesdrop from ships
Voyeurs licking moistened lips, ‘cause…

In the flash of this moment
You’re the best of what we are —
Don’t let them stop you now
Nicaragua

February 1983 – Managua

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn Live – 1990 / 2002
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Here comes the helicopter — second time today
Everybody scatters and hopes it goes away
How many kids they’ve murdered only God can say
If I had a rocket launcher…I’d make somebody pay

I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate
I don’t believe in generals or their stinking torture states
And when I talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would retaliate

On the Rio Lacantun, one hundred thousand wait
To fall down from starvation — or some less humane fate
Cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate
If I had a rocket launcher…I would not hesitate

I want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
Situation desperate, echoes of the victims cry
If I had a rocket launcher…Some son of a bitch would die

February and April 1983 – Chiapas, Mexico, and Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Bruce Cockburn Live – 2002
Slice O Life – 2009
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Battered buses jammed up to the roof
Dust and diesel the prevailing themes
Farmer sleeping on the truck in front
Feet trailing over like he’s trolling for dreams
Smiling girl directing traffic flow
.45 strapped over cotton print dress
Marimba-brown and graceful limbs
Give me a moment of loneliness

Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning

Headlights pick out fallen sack of corn
One lone tarantula standing guard
We pull up and stop and she ambles off
Discretion much the better part of cars
Rodrigo the government driver jumps out
He’s got chickens who can use the feed
We sweep the asphalt on our hands and knees
Fill up his trunk with dusty yellow seeds

Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning

Guitars and rifles in blue moonlight
Soldiers stretched out on sparkling grass
Engine broke down — they took us in
now we make music for the time to pass
Tired men and women raise their voice to the night
Hope the fragile bloom they’ve grown will last
Pride and passion and love and fear
Burning hearts burning boats of the past

Dust and diesel
Rise like incense from the road
Smoke of offering
For the revolution morning

March 1983 – Interamerican Highway, Nicaragua

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Yanqui wake up
You know it’s time to go
The sun is almost up and we want to be alone

Yanqui head spin
Better get some rest
Tomorrow we can talk about the way you insulted the guests

Ivan’s outside
Sulking in the yard
Everyone got bad communication when the time gets hard

Not a nice guy
But he’s got troubles of his own
Anyway it’s best if you both just leave the rest of us alone

Yanqui go home
You had too much
Better go sleep it off
Party’s over —
Time to meditate on it
Time to tally up the cost

Yanqui wake up
Don’t you see what you’re doing
Trying to be the Pharoah of the West bringing nothing but ruin

Better start swimming
Before you begin to drown
All those petty tyrants in your pocket gonna weigh you down

You’re my friend but I say
Yanqui go home
You had too much
Better go sleep it off
Party’s over
Time to meditate on it
Time to tally up the cost

1983

Also On:
Rumours Of Glory – German release 1985
Stealing Fire – 2003
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

Under the skin insect glint is shot thoughts
Hemispheres of sparks, eyes that won’t close
Observe and doing change all things

Falls through Love objects
this gathering of accidents
into dynastic triumph of things
I long for dawn at end of mind

Traveling light deluge of birth and death
quiver of events trembling to be
Shot into the face of time
Call it the Sundance

Everything you do, everything you say
Whether false or true
in some kind of way, touches something
Everything you take, everything you leave
Every move you make
Pulls the fabric of the weave of everything
Call it the Sundance

Everything you do, everything you say
Whether false or true
in some kind of way, touches something
Everything you take, everything you leave
Every move you make
Pulls the fabric of the weave of everything
Call it the Sundance

1983

Also On:
Stealing Fire – 2003



With 1984’s Stealing Fire, Bruce Cockburn’s words and music took a greater urgency than ever before. The previous year, he made his first trip to Central America on behalf of the international development group OXFAM. While in southern Mexico, he visited a refugee camp that had recently been attacked by the helicopters of the U.S.-backed Guatemalan army.

The horrific experience sparked the anger-filled “If I Had A Rocket Launcher”, a song which brought him unprecedented attention – garnering heavy radio airplay and regular video rotation on MTV.

Stealing Fire is full of many of Cockburn’s most powerful political songs, yet it boasts some of his most romantic numbers as well. From “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” to “Making Contact” whether issuing calls to action or cries for help. Bruce Cockburn’s poetry demands affection.

Upon its release Stealing Fire immediately staked a claim as one of the most compelling albums by singer-songwriter in the 1980s. Nearly twenty years later, the album’s impact is undiminished.

Album Info:

the musicians are:
bruce cockburn – guitar and voice
jon goldsmith – keyboards
fergus marsh – bass and stick
miche pouliot – drums
chi sharpe – percussion

words and music by bruce cockburn
except on “maybe the poet” words by bruce cockburn,
music by bruce cockburn, kerry crawford, jon goldsmith, and fergus marsh, and “to raise the morning star”, words by bruce cockburn, music by bruce cockburn and fergus marsh

published by golden mountain music corp. (BMI)
© 1984 golden mountain music corp.

recorded at manta sound, toronto, march-april 1984
engineer: john naslen
assisted by: ron searles
mastering by: mike reese, mastering lab, los angeles
produced by: jon goldsmith and kerry crawford
for true north productions
art direction: bart schoales
cover painting: blair drawson
photography: george whiteside

direction:
the finkelstein management company limited.
98 queens street east, suite 201,
toronto, ontario, m5c 1s6, (416) 364-6040


Bruce Cockburn - Rumours Of Glory - 1985 - German Release

Rumours Of Glory – compilation German Release

Bruce Cockburn - Rumours Of Glory - 1985 - German Release
Rumours Of Glory – 1985

RELEASE DATE: 1985
PURCHASE: Out Of Print

* only available on the CD version
+ previously unreleased

Songs are linked to the original album for lyrics.

1. The Trouble With Normal (3:35)
2. Going Up Against Chaos* (5:31)
3. Wondering Where The Lions Are (3:42)
4. Tokyo (3:25)
5. All’s Quiet On The Inner City Front (5:27)
6. Creation Dream* (4:00)
7. Wanna Go Walking (2:53)
8. Grim Travellers* (4:51)
9. Rumours Of Glory (3:38)
10. Tropic Moon (4:38)

Yanqui wake up
You know it’s time to go
The sun is almost up and we want to be alone

Yanqui head spin
Better get some rest
Tomorrow we can talk about the way you insulted the guests

Ivan’s outside
Sulking in the yard
Everyone got bad communication when the time gets hard

Not a nice guy
But he’s got troubles of his own
Anyway it’s best if you both just leave the rest of us alone

Yanqui go home
You had too much
Better go sleep it off
Party’s over —
Time to meditate on it
Time to tally up the cost

Yanqui wake up
Don’t you see what you’re doing
Trying to be the Pharoah of the West bringing nothing but ruin

Better start swimming
Before you begin to drown
All those petty tyrants in your pocket gonna weigh you down

You’re my friend but I say
Yanqui go home
You had too much
Better go sleep it off
Party’s over
Time to meditate on it
Time to tally up the cost

1983

Also On:
Stealing Fire – 2003 (remastered)
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 3 – 2014

12. Lord Of The Starfields (3:22)
13. The Coldest Night Of The Year (3:58)
14. Laughter (3:35)
15. The Rose Above The Sky* (6:23)



Rumours of Glory is on Plane Records and contains Yanqui Go Home which was previously unreleased and is a Germany-only release. It is currently out of print.


Bruce Cockburn - World Of Wonders - 1986

World Of Wonders

Bruce Cockburn - World Of Wonders - 1986
World Of Wonders – 1986

RELEASE DATE: 1986
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North


World Of Wonders – vinyl edition
RELEASE DATE: 2 November 2010
PURCHASE: True North
CAT #TNV003

This limited edition 180g vinyl release includes a digital download card featuring all tracks from the original, full–length CD.

Padded with power here they come
International loan sharks backed by the guns
Of market hungry military profiteers
Whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
With the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
Who render rage a necessity
By turning countries into labour camps
Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
Who makes the gun into a sacrament —
The only response to the deification
Of tyranny by so-called “developed” nations’
Idolatry of ideology

North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It’s just spend a buck to make a buck
You don’t really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
Passing themselves off as leaders
Kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
Open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy
And they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
Trying to make the best of it the way kids do
One day you’re going to rise from your habitual feast
To find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
They call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
Takes away everything it can get
Always making certain that there’s one thing left
Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

November 1985 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Bruce Cockburn – Live – 1990 / 2002
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance – 1997
Anything Anytime Anywhere – 2002
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Over the slow slide of continents
Over the salt pans pipelines masts and pavilions
Shimmering crescent moon recedes into working dawn —
Lone crow against pallid sky
Single plume of white smoke on yellow speckled plain
Yellowing leaves sparkle in cold breeze —
Wave patterns among wave patterns
Particles disperse and rejoin
Dissolve and reform like the lining of a womb
Still
The cold of your absence blows from
The silent TV, the parking lot
The balcony with clothes waving good-bye/hello

In the rising day
You keep fading away
Don’t I know that you’re always around
I can reach you if I try
Lily of the midnight sky

Solders of sunrise — shooting into a forest of flowers
Slow motion
Petals float into pink crimson white
Grow wings
Flutter into mountainous distance
Flutter like a stadium full of applauding hands
I raise a fist to the marauding sun that has hidden you away
I’m the rag in a bottle of gasoline
Longing to ignite
Ich will alles
All of you — shining on the panther skin of night
Mirrored in a black lake in a night that glistens like blood on gold

Nobody else could be you
If only I could see you
I should be able to touch you somehow
I can reach you if I try
Lily of the midnight sky

While you look from on high
Spare a smile as I
Put on my dog mask and howl for you
I can reach you if I try
Lily of the midnight sky

November 11, 1984 – Boulder, Colorado

Stand on a bridge before the cavern of night
Darkness alive with possibility
Nose to this wind full of twinkling lights
Trying to catch the scent of what’s coming to be (in this…)

World of wonders…

Somewhere a saxophone slides through changes
Like a wet pipe dripping down my neck
Gives me a chill — sounds like danger
But I can’t stop moving till I cross this sector (of this…)

World of wonders…

There’s a rainbow shining in a bead of spittle
Falling diamonds in rattling rain
Light flexed on moving muscle
I stand here dazzled with my heart in flames (at this…)

World of wonders…

Moment of peace like brief arctic bloom
Red/gold ripple of the sun going down
Line of black hills makes my bed
Sky full of love pulled over my head

World of wonders…

June 1985 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Bruce Cockburn – Live – 1990 / 2002
Slice O Life – 2009

Dull twilight spits hesitant sulphur rain
Sky been down around our ears for weeks
Only once — gap-glimpsed moon over that anal-retentive border wall
As we laughed through some midnight checkpoint under yellow urban cloud

Weeks of frantic motion — petrol veins of Europe pumping
Through scratchy acid-bitten transparent winter trees
Through brownish haze that makes a ghost of the horizon
I’m rushing after some ever-receding destination

Berlin tonight
Table-dancing in black tights
Waving a silver crutch in the blue lights
Shapechanging over glass
On the front line of the last gasp

Green shoots of winter wheat and patches of snow
Russian walks dog in Saxon field
From the top of a solitary tree like the one on the flag of Lebanon
Unblinking eye of hawk follows traffic on the autobahn

Tank convoy winds down smokestack valley
Pround chemical pennants wave against the sky
Turret gunner laughs when I throw up my hands
I’m all glasses and grin to him under my “commie” fur hat

Berlin tonight
Table-dancing in black tights
Waving a silver crutch in the blue lights
Shapechanging over glass
On the front line of the last gasp

February 1985 – 2 Germanies

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

You’ve got covert action
Prejudice to extremes
You’ve got primitive cunning
And high tech means
You’ve got eyes everywhere
But people see through you

You’ve got good manipulators
Got your store of dupes
You’ve got the idiot clamour
Of your lobby groups
You like to play on fears
But people see through you

You’ve got instant communication
Instant data tabulation
You got the forces of occupation
But you don’t get capitulation
Cause people see through you

You’ve got the sounding brass
You’ve got the triumph of the will
You do what you want to
And we pay the bills
you hype the need for sacrifice
but people see through you

You’ve got anti-matter language
Contrived to conceal
You’ve been lying so long
You don’t know what’s real
You’re a figment of your own imagination
And people see through you

You’ve got lip service tributaries
You’ve got death fetish mercenaries
You hold the tickets to the cemetaries
You’re big and bad and scary
But people see through you

August 25, 1985 – Bridgenorth

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Rumours Of Glory box set – disc 4 – 2014
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Rays of the moon make magic in the streets of the city
All the people get strange but their faces look so pretty
The walking graffiti, survivalist bums
Even the secret police shout that you’re the one
See how I miss you

Every psychopath gets his own magazine these days
I just read about how I can kill in a hundred ways
But I don’t want to cause anybody pain
I only want to hold you in my arms again
See how I miss you

I watch this woman in a tight sequined lizard dress —
Tosses her scarlet hair like a sly caress
She got midnight voice like some beckoning saint
She got something special but you she ain’t
See how I miss you

November 1985 – Toronto, Canada

Also On:
Waiting For A Miracle – 1987
Bruce Cockburn – Live – 1990 / 2002

Something moves in the still dark hours
Sunday in a shanty town
Wyelids open two by two
But not a single light goes on

Tension builds as the only sound
Is the quiet clash of metal and boots
And now and then an order barked
At the bullies in the drab green suits

Military thugs with their dogs and clubs
Spreading through the poblacion
Hunting whoever still has a voice
Sure that everyone will run

They come in strong but it’s not that long
Before they know it’s not so easy to leave
To keep a million homeless down takes more
Than a strong arm up your sleeve

At the crack of dawn the first door goes down
Snapped off a makeshift frame
In a matter of minutes the first rock flies
Barricades burst into flame

First mass rings through smoke and gas
Day flowers out of the night
Creatures of the dark in disarray
Fall before the morning light

Bells of rage — bells of hope
As the ten-year night wears down
Sisters and brothers are coming home
To see the Santiago dawn

Santiago sunrise
See them marching home
See them rising like grass through cement
In the Santiago dawn

I got a dream and I’m not alone
Darkness dead and gone
All the people marching home
Kissing the rush of dawn

Santiago sunrise
See them marching home
See them rising like grass through cement
In the Santiago dawn

December 1983 – Santiago

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

Praying mantis on screen
Canoes prowl reef in early morning sun
As it flashes on the rhythmic fall of weed cutter’s cutlass blade
Everybody’s got something to sell besides the obvious dollars and dope
Aloe rub, starfish, vegetable patties, braid your hair miss and bush doctor cures
Sudden angry eruption between aloe peddler and man with property to protect
Muscular security guard with truncheon of twisted wire
“Kiss my blood clot” she hisses and they’re enemies for life
In the beach front bar they’re playing reggae versions of Jim Reeves’ Greatest Hits
The waitress sings along, eyes focused dreamily on that sentimental world and there’s Dancing in Paradise…

Blue green ship in turquoise bay
Swollen bauxite-red river rushing
Stream rising from feathered bamboo hills
Tracks once paved now falling away into deep lush valleys
And the farmed-out road contracts pass through so many hands
The print erodes with the weather-worn blacktop
And the jungle’s always trying to reclaim the right of way
And the mangoes cacao turmeric goats soursop
Mushrooms cane plantains limes
Horses crayfish long-legged birds donkeys
Curved horns of cattle above dense grass
Ganja sensitive plant ackee
And some thorn whose prick brings lockjaw
And tires torn by sharp yellow rocks —
Young girl stares pensively from dark door in pale blue wall
Big About and friends at their crossroads bar
With its dirt corral for dancing
Drink soursop juice all day long
In quest of the perpetual stiff bamboo
And there’s Dancing in Paradise…

Biggy Dread gunned down by police at Big Bridge March 16
Riding a mule cart to Sav-la-Mar pulled out a cutlass and they had to shoot
That’s what they say
Something tells me they like to shoot
Something in the eyes of the ones at the road block
Where they searched the car and tried to get us to confess to whatever…
There’s truncheons and gas down in Harbour St.
Typical response where life isn’t so sweet
And somebody gets desperate enough to say so
Price of fish price of flour
Going up up up almost by the hour
And they throw away money on spectacular shows
To show the world the right likes the right music
And the Prime Minister sucks ice cream in the company of a happy band of children
While a naked man, sores on his neck,
Lies for days in Washington Blvd. gnawing chicken bones
And the Chamber of Commerce thinks there’s too much crime
And there’s a kung fu movie in every town
And there’s Dancing in Paradise…

Easter 1985 – Jamaica

Sweet wind blowing off the bay
Sweeping the heat of the day away
Making the leaves of the palm trees sway
Down here tonight everything’s okay

Net’s coming in and the anchor’s down
Hour of darkness comes around
Stars dust the sky and the lights go on
Soon tonight will be filled with song

Pans gonna play and the fire burn bright
Talking drums say everything’s all right
Beating of the sea sends a message
To the far starlight
“We’re doing okay down here tonight”

The end of the road’s still far away
But the travelling’s better by the light of day
This hour of darkness is the time to dance
Lay down your burdens — give the beat a chance

Pans gonna play and the fire burn bright
Talking drums say everything’s all right
Beating of the sea sends a message
To the far starlight
“We’re doing okay down here tonight”

January 1984 – Tobago



One of Bruce Cockburn’s most politically driven albums. Featuring “Call it Democracy”, “People see Through you” and “Santiago Down”.

Album Info:

words and music by: bruce cockburn
published by: golden mountain music corp.
© 1985 golden mountain music corp. all rights reserved, used by permission
translation: marcel mousette
recorded at manta sound, toronto, october-november 1985
engineer: john naslen
assisted by: mark baldi
mastering by: bob ludwig, masterdisk, new york

the musicians are:
bruce cockburn – voice, guitars, caharango
judy cade: bckground vocals
jon goldsmith: keyboarads
fergus jemison marsh: bass and stick
hugh marsh: violin · apperas courtesy of duke street recjords
chi sharpe: percussion
michael sloski: drums
michael alan white: trumpet, flugelhorn and conch
background vocals on: “see how i miss you” and “dancing in paradise” – sharon lee williams, shawn jackson, colina phillips, judy cade and kerry crawford

art direction: bart schoales
photography: george whiteside

direction:
the finkelstein management company limited
98 queen street east, suite 201
toronto, ontario, canada m5c 1s6
telephone: (416) 364-6040 telex: 065-24566

Produced by Jon Goldsmith and Kenny Crawford for True North Productions