Friday, November 23, 2007

Bruce Cockburn: Fellow Traveller

Not sure what it is about Canadians but they sure produce the bards. On a recent post I commented on Joni Mitchell who is Canadian. This post is about Bruce Cockburn. My recommendation to any music lover that has not been introduced to this artist is to buy sight unseen his album, "Charity of Night" (1996). From there you will know what to do. If you follow this guy at all, he will take you places. The theme of this blog has been about seeing beyond the surface. Cockburn writes on an incredibly high level. The images in his songs take several listenings to coalesce. The are like peeling an onion. Each time you listen, you notice something frayed at the edge and pull it back to find a new deeper layer. Try these lyrics by Bruce Cockburn on for size:

"Strange Waters"

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

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

You've been leading me
Beside strange waters

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

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

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

-- Bruce Cockburn


Hard to add to that! My rhetorical question is, Who will take flight if you loose your grip?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

ok...gonna go buy that word unheard...

Ken said...

Hope,

This song, "Strange Waters" is actually fairly painful to listen to. It cuts. This is the last track of the album. The tracks alternate between heavy potent imagery using words then instrumentals. Its a brilliant experience as an album. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Believe me the instrumentals give you time to recover your emotions and digest what is being given. This music is not well suited to the short attention span of commerical radio. After the reprieve, wham!, here comes another.

Of course the line that I live every workday is, "I've stood in airports guarded glass and chrome." In particular, when I am riding the moving sidewalk in Phoenix Skyharbor airport looking through the glass at the tarmac panning the scene as though my eye were a camera. A wonderful detatchment developes; a loosening of the grip. Your standing still but everything around you is in relative motion.

Catherine said...

Ken,

Thank you so much for visiting my blog. It means a lot. :) Thank you as well for your comments. I have always loved "As you like it" from Shakespeare.

I've looked through your blog today and love the pictures. You are so lucky to be a pilot! Here I am at work typing furiously on a computer cooped up all day and there you are flying through the clouds. :)

Please visit again soon. :) I will most definitely do the same!