Life Short Call Now

Bruce Cockburn - Life Short Call Now - 2006
Life Short Call Now – 2006

RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2006
PURCHASE: iTunes | True North

Billboards promise paradise
And tattoos “done while you wait”
Possible futures all laid out
On the sweeping curve of the interstate

Got no city, got no land
Got no lover, got no wife
How many ways to say goodbye
Can one man fit in a nomad life?

Life short-call now

Lone car waxes, then it wanes
Leaves only voices in the hall
And in the room next door to mine
The bed is banging on the wall

You’ve no idea how I long
For even one loving caress
For you to step into my heart
Without deception or duress

Life short-call now

April 1, 2003 – Montreal

Met a mercenary once
Pushing lethal steel
Wanted me to watch his back
While he did his deal

He must have been a loser
Or he wouldn’t have looked to me
But I have to say, I liked the thought
Of living that guilt-free
Watching the way the women walk
Makes me think of you
And all my sins and all my stalkers
Affect me that way too
The pain on the horizon
Can’t sink me in sorrow
‘Cause I know I’m going to be
Seeing you tomorrow

O–see you tomorrow
See you tomorrow
See you tomorrow

Look at that big fat full moon
Hanging in the night
When I feel it calling me
The shackles seem to bite
These chains of flesh are sour and sweet
But these we must explore, oh
I know I’m going to feel complete
When I see you tomorrow

O–see you tomorrow
See you tomorrow
See you tomorrow

December 12, 2005 – Kingston

Also On
Slice O Life – 2009

You can’t tell me there is no mystery
Mystery
Mystery
You can’t tell me there is no mystery
It’s everywhere I turn

Moon over junk yard where the snow lies bright
Snow lies bright
Snow lies bright
Moon over junk yard where the snow lies bright
Can set my heart to burn

Stood before the shaman, I saw star-strewn space
Star-strewn space
Star-strewn space
Stood before the shaman, I saw star strewn space
Behind the eye holes in his face

Infinity always gives me vertigo
Vertigo
Vertigo
Infinity always gives me vertigo
And fills me up with grace

I was built on a Friday and you can’t fix me
You can’t fix me
You can’t fix me
I was built on a Friday and you can’t fix me
Even so I’ve done okay

So grab that last bottle full of gasoline
Gasoline
Gasoline
Grab that last bottle full of gasoline
Light a toast to yesterday

And don’t tell me there is no mystery
Mystery
Mystery
And don’t tell me there is no mystery
It overflows my cup

This feast of beauty can intoxicate
Intoxicate
Intoxicate
This feast of beauty can intoxicate
Just like the finest wine

So all you stumblers who believe love rules
Believe love rules
Believe love rules
Come all you stumblers who believe love rules
Stand up and let it shine
Stand up and let it shine

April 20, 2004 – Montreal

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

There’s a knot in my gut
As I gaze out today
On the planes of the city
All polychrome grey
When the skin is peeled off it
What is there to say?
The beautiful creatures are going away

Like a dam on a river
My conscience is pressed
By the weight of hard feelings
Piled up in my breast
The callous and vicious things
Humans display
The beautiful creatures are going away

Why? Why?

From the stones of the fortress
To the shapes in the air
To the ache in the spirit
We label despair
We create what destroys,
Bind ourselves to betray
The beautiful creatures going away

October 25, 2004 – Montreal

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

Instrumental
L ron N ron every kind of ron con
Neocon old con got to put the brakes on
Slow down fast

Lights out veins plugged zap it with another drug
Genejacker pharma thug say hello to superbug
Slow down fast

Shills and hawkers and rockers with walkers
Bombs in the lockers and brain dead mockers
Slow down fast

One-eyed sun leering through the haze
Hordes of loveless marching while the little drummer plays
Nail in the coffin rats in the maze
Dancing arm in arm towards the looming end of days
Got to slow down

Oil wars water wars tv propaganda whores
Fire alarm met with snores no one gets what’ gone before
Slow down fast

Flagwave hammer slave gonna be a close shave
Stay brave jump the grave got to save what we can save
Slow down fast

Got to slow down fast
Slow down fast
CSIS won’t you tell me what you’ve got on me?

January 9, 2006 – Kingston

Tell the universe what you’ve done
Out in the desert with your smoking gun
Looks like you’ve been having too much fun
Tell the universe what you’ve done

Tell the universe what you took
While the heavens trembled and the mountains shook
All those lives not worth a second look
Tell the universe what you took

You’ve been projecting your shit at the world
Self-hatred tarted up as payback time
You can self destruct-that’s your right
But keep it to yourself if you don’t mind

Tell the universe where you’ve been
With your bloodstained shoes and your dunce’s grin
Got to identify next of kin
Tell the universe where you’ve been

April 21, 2003 – Boston

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

Everything’s broken in the birthplace of law
As Generation Two tries on his tragic flaw
America’s might under desert sun
I saw her frightened eyes behind the muzzle of her gun

Uranium dust and the smell of decay
Sewage in the street where the kids run and play
Not enough morphine and not enough gauze
Firefight in darkness like snapping of jaws

This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad

You couldn’t see the blast-the morning was bright-
But some radiant energy flared up into the light
Like the sky throwing its hands up in a horrified dismay
Or the souls of the dead as they sped on their way

Carbombed and carjacked and kidnapped and shot
How do you like it, this freedom we brought
We packed all the ordnance but the thing we forgot
Was a plan in case it didn’t turn out quite like we thought

This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad

April 19, 2004 – Montreal

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

She said she wanted me
I had to let her know
It was never meant to be
And she had to let it go
She was pissed and hurting
But what was I supposed to do
I did not love her, but it’s
Different when it comes to you

Lamentations everywhere
All the colours turned to blue
Desperation laid her bare
She told me everything I could do
She told herself a story
That flat out wasn’t true
She made me feel sorry
But it’s different when it comes to you

I don’t want to go home tonight
I want to turn loose my lust
I want you to squeeze me tight
Do the things that we discussed
I bring you my broken self
With zero hidden from your view
I don’t usually do that but it’s
Different when it comes to you
I didn’t know I could do that, but it’s
Different when it comes to you

June 20, 2005 – Kingston

Also On:
Greatest Hits (1970-2020)

Endless silver
Wave forms crash in
Sea’s too big to fit in my brain [heart]
Nothings too big to fit in my heart

Seas come, seas go
Where they stood deserts flow
Time’s too big to fit in the brain
Nothing’s too big to fit in my heart

Spacetime strings bend
World without end
God’s too big to fit in a book
Nothings too big to fit in my heart

July 15, 2005 – Kingston



This is Bruce Cockburn’s 29th studio recording entitled LIFE SHORT CALL NOW. This beautiful album follows up 2005’s Speechless – Cockburn’s first-ever instrumental record. Life Short Call Now was recorded at Puck’s Farm outside of Toronto. It includes 12 Cockburn originals and features guest appearances from Ani Difranco, Ron Sexsmith, Hawksley Workman and Damhnait Doyle. Life Short Call Now was produced by JOHNATHAN GOLDSMITH who also produced Bruce Cockburn’s Stealing Fire in 1984. Several of these songs were written during and after Bruce Cockburn’s 2004 fact-finding mission to Baghdad. Some tracks feature Cockburn with a twenty-three piece orchestra which is a first for Bruce.

ALBUM INFO:
Produced by Jonathan Goldsmith
Recorded at National Treasures’ Studio, at Puck’s Farm, Schomberg Ontario
February 1 to February 25, 2006
Engineered by Jeff McMurrich
Assisted by Walter Sobzcak
Mixed at Phase One Studios, Toronto, Canada
March 5 to March 20, 2006
Engineered by Jeff McMurrich
Assisted by Greg Kolchinsky
Mastered by Greg Calbi
at Sterling Sound, New York, New York

All songs written by Bruce Cockburn
(c) Golden Mountain Music Corp. (SOCAN)
except Tell the Universe written by
Bruce Cockburn, Julie Wolf, Ben Riley and Steve Lucas and
published by Golden Mountain Music Corp/six pounder music/Ben Riley/Steve Lucas

Photography by Kevin Kelly

Art Direction, design, layout, digital illustration (bullet through world)
and photography (phone on fire) by A Man Called Wrycraft, Toronto

Direction:
The Finkelstein Management Company, Ltd.
260 Richmond Street West, Suite 501
Toronto, Ontario Canada M5V 1W5
PH: 416-596-8696
FX: 416-596-6861
e-mail: info@truenorthrecords.com
www.truenorthrecords.com
www.brucecockburn.com

The musicians are:
Gary Craig: Drums and Percussion
David Piltch: Acoustic and Electric Bass
Julie Wolf: Piano, Harmonium, Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes, B3, Accordion and Melodica
Jonathan Goldsmith: Celeste, Glockenspiel, Maikotron, Prepared Piano, Piano on Mystery, and Fender Rhodes on Nude Descending a Staircase
Kevin Turcotte: Flugelhorn and Trumpet
Bruce Cockburn: Guitars and Vocals

Horns on Mystery:
David Buchbinder: Alto Horn
Kevin Turcotte: Alto Horn
Scott Suttie: Double Bell Euphonium
Paul Neufield: Sousaphone

Background Vocals:
Ron Sexsmith on Mystery
Hawksley Workman on Mystery and Slow Down Fast
Damhnait Doyle on Mystery, Life Short Call Now and Different When It Comes To You
Ani DiFranco on See You Tomorrow
Julie Wolf on Tell the Universe and To Fit In My Heart

String Orchestra:
Violas: Parmela Attariwala, Virginia Barron, Caroline Blackwell, Johnthan Craig, Steve Dann, Kathleen Kajioka, Jeewon Kim, Gary Labovitz, Teng Li, Nick Papadakis, Douglas Perry, Anna Redekip, Christopher Redfield, Angela Rudden, Beverly Spotton, Scott St. John, Josef Tamir, David Willms

Cellos: Maurizio Baccante, Roman Borys, Matt Bruceck, David Hetherington, John Marshman, Paul Widner, Winona Zelenka

Basses: Roberto Occhipinti, Charles Elliot

Score Preparation by Dan Parr
Strings Arranged and Conducted by Jonathan Goldsmith
Strings recorded by Jeff McMurrich at Glenn Gould Studios, Toronto on March 2 and 3, 2006
Assisted by Dennis Patterson and Pete Lawlor

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage (Canada Music Fund).

Ani DiFranco appears courtesy of Righteous Babe Records
Ron Sexsmith appears courtesy of Warner Music Canada
Hawksley Workman appears courtesy of Isedora/Universal