Bruce Cockburn

Bruce Cockburn
Student Activities Office

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Of course it is hard for me to write about Bruce Cockburn. I’m only 25. The Canadian born folk artist has been making music for much longer. His first studio album was released in 1970. As a result, I come to Bruce Cockburn as an immigrant, but with a measure of immigrant zeal. In fact, I’d suppose that many latecomers, just like his long term fans, are equally excited about Cockburn’s work. I consider him an auteur of folk music.

A large part of Cockburn’s appeal lies in his quite excellent use of the guitar. Take “Thoughts On A Rainy Afternoon,” whose elements create a track that is deceptively simple. The benefit of the austere combination of Cockburn’s voice and his meandering guitar make for a captivating listen. In “The Iris Of The World” a much more recent track from Cockburn’s latest LP Small Source Of Comfort, Cockburn seems to call on some of the vocal styling of David Byrne and a mix of involved instrumentation that departs from earlier work. Here again we see some skilled riffing in a track that seems to plow forward like a train.

The same holds for “Boundless,” another fine new track from Small Source of Comfort. What’s even more on “Boundless” is the lyrical content. As a matter of course, it helps to know that Cockburn has made a clear mark, over the course of his career, as a progressive critical thinker and often vexed and self-conscious Christian songwriter. He attracts die-hards and crossover listeners (read: “non-Christian”) equally. In “Boundless” we see Cockburn painting a picture that appeals certainly to his Christian struggles but one that also stretches beyond Christian subculture. “Seven dances for the spirits running a race” intones Cockburn,

…running a race
seven dances for the saints
running a race, running a race
looking for the stillness in the womb of space
Boundless
Boundless.

Slant’s Joseph Jon Lanthier makes the observation that Cockburn is at his best when “recollecting intense observations in tranquility” and goes on to say,

“His early acoustic-oriented albums explored the uneasy quirkiness of his Christian beliefs with a mason-like sobriety; these themes would, later in his career, flower into world-weary bewilderment with the political song reportage of tracks like "Grim Travelers" and "Nicaragua."”

It may seem to some, after listening to Cockburn over time, that he is not able to escape, in Lantheir’s words, the world of “intense observations.” Maybe that’s true. But it doesn’t suggest a frustrating reality for Cockburn, or his art. One of Cockburn’s most talked about tracks, certainly inside Christian subcultures, is his 1984 “Lovers In a Dangerous Time” from his Stealing Fire LP. Hidden within the song is an evaporative stanza that has emerged, however fascinatingly, as a rallying cry for not only Cockburn’s Christian fans, but pretty much anyone who doesn’t feel like giving up yet: “Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight.” And so I agree with Lanthier when he says,

“It's hard to fault Cockburn's mellowed perspective toward the suffering of others; he's more than earned the right to ponder, however wonkily, his own approaching mortality.”

- John Scherer

Presentations at Calvin University

SAO Concert - Bruce Cockburn
Friday, April 20, 2012 09:00:00 PM
Covenant Fine Arts Auditorium (100)

Bruce Cockburn
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 08:00:00 PM