Bruce Cockburn, one of Canada’s best loved musicians and composers, has donated his archives to McMaster, including his notebooks, musical arrangements, gold records, letters, scrapbooks, nearly 1,000 recordings, and even three guitars.

“These are my tools, my rough drafts, my mementoes and my trophies. Together, they form the roadmap of my working life,” says Cockburn. “I’m pleased they will have a safe and permanent home in a place where they may be useful to others.”

The collection includes 32 of Cockburn’s notebooks from 1969 to 2002. Through their pages, one can trace the development of individual songs, sometimes from single thoughts to finished lyrics, all set randomly among pages of sketches, observations, budgets, set lists and other notes. The notebooks offer a real window into the artist and activist’s imagination, creative process and his life as a working musician rising to international prominence.

A Guild 12-string, model F212-NT, serial 51968, 1971
“That is on a couple of albums, You’ve Never Seen Everything (2003), for sure, and I think it’s on Breakfast at New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu (1999) … We had trouble amplifying that one for live shows. It didn’t come with a built-in pickup. I replaced it with a 12-string Manzer.”

A Manzer, serial 10228
“This one is a Linda Manzer guitar. I hold her in great esteem as a luthier, and I’ve been very much associated with her for decades. I thought it would be good to have something of hers in there and I had enough of them that I could spare one.”

A Martin & Co., Little Martin LX1E, serial MG 18964
“A Little Martin travel guitar that I took to Nepal with me. That guitar is in a documentary we made about that trip to Nepal (the film is also part of the collection) so I thought it would be nice to be able to see it on film and have it there.”

“Bruce Cockburn is an iconic and respected figure in Canadian and international culture,” says McMaster Provost and vice-president (academic) David Wilkinson. “For him to choose McMaster as the recipient of this collection, while he is still contributing to our culture, is a true honour. We are grateful for his gift, which will impact generations of students and other researchers across multiple disciplines, including those involved with McMaster’s highly regarded music program.”

Among the papers Cockburn has donated is correspondence from notable figures such as Adrienne Clarkson, Lloyd Axworthy, David Suzuki, Vanessa Redgrave, Anne Murray and John Crosbie. There are fan letters, photos and more in a collection that requires 64 pages just to list all the items that will be available to researchers at McMaster’s William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections.

“We are delighted to receive such a rich resource that will benefit students, faculty members and other researchers studying not only music and poetry, but social activism, politics and the creative process itself,” says McMaster’s acting University Librarian Vivian Lewis.

Cockburn was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from McMaster in 2009.Cockburn was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1982 and was promoted to Officer in 2002. In 2001, he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the 30th Annual Juno Awards, in 2002 The Canadian Association of Broadcasters inducted him into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame at the 76th Annual Gold Ribbon Awards Gala, In 2007 he received three honorary doctorates, the fourth, fifth and sixth of his career. In early May he received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Queens University in Kingston, Ontario, and later in the month he received an Honorary Doctor of Letters at the convocation of Memorial University of Newfoundland for his lifelong contributions to Canadian music, culture and social activism. He was then awarded an Honourary Doctorate from the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia. Cockburn previously received honorary doctorates from York University in Toronto, Berklee College of Music, and St. Thomas University in New Brunswick.

Cockburn was the recipient of an honorary doctorate from McMaster University in 2009. Cockburn received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

The University’s archives also include personal collections from such notable thinkers and artists as philosopher Bertrand Russell, authors Pierre Berton, Margaret Laurence and Farley Mowat.

Bruce Cockburn flies solo in Burlington, Ontario

Bruce Cockburn definitely enjoys working with a band, but he’ll fly solo in Burlington this summer.

“If I’m the only one on stage, the songs become more front and centre,” he said. “That’s as opposed to playing with a band, where you could be distracted by some real cool thing the drummer does. This is sort of a more direct relationship with the audience.”

The renowned folk singer/guitarist, creator of songs like Lovers In A Dangerous Time, Wondering Where The Lions Are and Waiting For A Miracle performs here on Aug. 29.

His concert will take place at the Burlington Performing Arts Centre, 440 Locust St. It starts at 8 p.m.

The show will feature all acoustic material, said Cockburn in a telephone interview from San Francisco, where he now lives.

“In general, there’s always an emphasis on the newer stuff,” he said. “That’s always more interesting to me.”

“Of the 300 songs I’ve recorded, I can only perform 50 or so at a time,” said the Ottawa native. “Which 50, depends on the timing.”

Cockburn previously played here in a benefit concert at a north Burlington farm.

Cockburn was singing one of Sarah Harmer’s tunes with the Burlington performer.

“The lyrics were on a big piece of cardboard at my feet,” he said. “But I was wearing bifocals and couldn’t read them. I felt bad for Sarah that I messed up one of her songs.”

The show, which also featured Feist, was a fundraiser for Protecting Escarpment Rural Lands (PERL).

He and Harmer are shown rehearsing and performing together in the Pacing the Cage DVD, to be released on June 18.

The documentary examines the life, spirituality and songs of Cockburn, whose musical career started in 1966.

It includes concert clips, plus appearances by his manager Bernie Finkelstein, Jackson Browne, Sylvia Tyson, Colin Linden and others.

“Director Joel Goldberg and the camera man were terrific company to have on the road,” said Cockburn. “But you have to make sure you’re not doing something you shouldn’t.”

The DVD opens with U2 singer Bono quoting from Cockburn’s hit, If I Had a Rocket Launcher.

He wrote it in a hotel room after visiting a refugee camp whose inhabitants were threatened with violence from Guatemala.

“I remember drinking whiskey and writing the song and crying,” Cockburn recalled on the DVD.

He’s also shown with Lieut.-Gen. (Ret’d) Romeo Dallaire, now a senator. They have raised the issue of child soldiers.

The singer/activist is an Officer of the Order of Canada and is even featured on a Canadian postage stamp.

He follows the issues of North Korea, Syria, the United States and other places.

“There’s a lot of nasty stuff going on all over the planet,” said Cockburn. “It seems at least at the top levels, that there’s an absence of leadership for solving problems.”

His passionate vocals and nimble guitar playing have won him 13 Juno awards.

Cockburn’s latest was for Small Source of Comfort, a blend of folk, blues, jazz and rock.

Each One Lost was written after Cockburn witnessed a ceremony for two Canadian soldiers who’d been killed.

“It was very poignant on all levels,” he said. “Nobody was thinking about being somewhere else. Everyone right there knew it could’ve been them.”

He wrote Comets of Kandahar after watching jets taking off with their tailpipes burning flames in the pitch darkness.

Call Me Rose is about disgraced former U.S. president Richard Nixon being reincarnated as a single mom in a housing project.

“I woke up one day and that song was in my head, it was almost complete,” he said.

Lyric writing is especially important to Cockburn, while arrangements for his songs are a team effort.

“I don’t necessarily have a definite idea, but I know it when I hear it,” he said. “And I know what I don’t want.”

There are more than 400 cover versions of his songs, by everyone from Barenaked Ladies to Jimmy Buffett to Anne Murray.

Cockburn said he likes the idea of other artists performing his music, although he doesn’t always like what they do.

“It’s important that people notice the songs and perform them,” he said. “In general, it’s a nice thing that people want to do it.”

Instead of songs nowadays, he’s writing a memoir after signing with a publisher.

Cockburn moved to San Francisco recently after his wife M.J. Hannett got a job there.

They have a baby daughter, Iona. (Cockburn also has a grownup daughter, Jenny).

Cockburn said he’s not sure about recording for that label again, since his manager Finkelstein no longer owns it.

After his Burlington concert, Cockburn will do a solo show at Niagara-On-The-Lake (Jackson-Triggs Amphitheatre) on Aug. 30.

For more information about his local appearance, call 905-681-6000 or visit www.burlingtonpac.ca

Bruce Cockburn donates archives to McMaster University

McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. announced Wednesday that Canadian songwriting legend Bruce Cockburn has donated his archives to McMaster — notebooks, musical arrangements, gold records, letters, scrapbooks, nearly 1,000 recordings and even three guitars.

The archive is there for students to pore over — and on Tuesday, Cockburn, 67, will be at McMaster to formally unveil the collection during a small, invite-only ceremony.

“It's nice to think there's some vestige of what I did in there that's preserved,” Cockburn told CBC Hamilton. “That said, I worry about inflicting it on some people. Some poor kid is going to have to study that stuff to get his PhD.”

All three guitars in the collection have been played live and popped up on various albums over the course of the Ottawa-born musician's decades-long career. The Guild 12-string was a gift from a former girlfriend, and it's the first 12-string guitar he ever owned.

The Martin is a travel guitar, and can be seen in the 2007 documentary Return to Nepal. And the Manzer is a custom build, constructed by Toronto-based luthier Linda Manzer.

But the jewels of the collection are Cockburn's handwritten notebooks. Inside are drafts of some of his biggest songs — like Lovers in a Dangerous Time from 1984's Stealing Fire.

“There's always a notebook,” Cockburn said. “I learned very early on that if you don't write those things down, they're gone.”

Lyrics are scrawled on now-faded pages in those notebooks — some lines crossed out, some changed as tunes evolved and took shape. There are sketches, notes from travel and first drafts of speeches.

In most cases, the lyrics almost always come before the music, Cockburn says. “Then I remember the music by playing it over and over.” But that doesn't mean the songs come easy.

“Getting images into a poetic form that can be put to music sometimes takes some doing,” Cockburn said. “Sometimes the words are just sitting there waiting for the right music.”

There are also thousands of photos from countless performances in the collection, as well as tour memorabilia from over the years. One show poster is clearly from very early on — the cover price is $1.50.

Cockburn says he's not usually one to give in to great waves of nostalgia. But it still means something to know people are this interested in his work — and committed to preserving it. It might not seem clear to everyone who reads it, he says, but years of work are summed up in those pages and have been played on those strings.

McMaster University
Media advisory

McMaster to celebrate gift of Bruce Cockburn archives May 7, 2013

Hamilton, Ont. April 30, 2013—Bruce Cockburn, one of Canada’s best loved musicians and composers, has donated his archives to McMaster, including notebooks, musical arrangements, gold records, letters, scrapbooks, nearly 1,000 recordings, and even three guitars.

He is to speak to invited guests and journalists at a celebration of his gift at McMaster Tuesday May 7, where other musicians, including Tom Wilson, Colin Linden, McMaster-based Of Gentlemen and Cowards and a string quartet will play selections from his repertoire.

A Celebration of the Bruce Cockburn Archives at McMaster
Tuesday May 7, 2013 - 7 to 9 p.m.
Convocation Hall (located in University Hall, Room 213). For more information, to arrange coverage of the event, or to see the archives, please contact:

Wade Hemsworth
Public Relations Manager
McMaster University
905-525-9140, ext. 27988
hemswor@mcmaster.ca

Michelle Donovan
Public Relations Manager
McMaster University
905-525-9140 ext. 22869
donovam@mcmaster.ca

Juno Awards Enlist Bruce Cockburn To Spotlight Green Initiative
by Kim Hughes|

Folks can quibble until they’re blue over who wins what at the 42^nd annual Juno Awards this weekend in Regina. But one area virtually impervious to criticism — yet largely invisible to the public — is the show’s concerted behind-the-scenes environmental efforts.

Indeed, since 2008 the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), which operates the Junos, has been working with innovative Vancouver-based green consultancy Strategin Solutions to implement and execute a widespread sustainability initiative covering everything from toilet tissue to catering choices to renewable electricity.

This year, in an effort to raise public awareness about the initiative, the Junos and CARAS have dubbed Canuck folk legend Bruce Cockburn their 2013 Sustainability Ambassador, a ceremonial but prestigious role held last year by Sam Roberts.

If anyone can drive home the point that the Juno brain-trust is working hard to reduce their show’s carbon footprint, it’s Cockburn, a noted environmentalist with a sterling and career-long track record of supporting agencies including Friends of the Earth, USC Canada and the David Suzuki Foundation plus Oxfam and Amnesty International.

“It’s obviously important for them to have a name that’s recognizable,” Cockburn, who won't be attending the Junos, tells Samaritanmag from his San Francisco home. “And it’s nice to be asked and to be thought of that way — as someone whose opinion matters.

“But the real point is to get everybody who is interested in the Juno Awards onside. And that’s a very broad demographic, a national TV audience. The more they can promote this [sustainable] model for holding events, the better off everybody is.

“Hopefully,” Cockburn adds, “other businesses that hold big events will make use of this [strategy] themselves. That would be the real benefit that could come out of it. Plus, encouraging young people to take a stand on environmental issues is important too.”

The sheer breadth of CARAS’s sustainability initiative surrounding the Junos is impressive and it’s based on something called the CSA Z2010, a rather clunkily named set of standards set down by solutions organization CSA Group and “published as a practical standard for a wide variety of cultural, business and sporting events and festivals,” goes the official literature provided by the Junos.

“This Standard specifies requirements for organizing and executing sustainable events, and provides guidance on how to continually improve the performance of events contributing to sustainable development.”

In practical terms, that means making big, corporate events like the Junos greener. And that’s where Ginny Stratton — founder and principal of Strategin Solutions, CARAS’s sustainability partner — comes in.

“CSA Z2010 informs the design and delivery of our sustainability initiative,” Stratton tells Samaritanmag from Regina. “There are certain requirements within the standard and we put in place a strategy that meets those requirements.

“And it’s integrated into our entire operation, so we look at everything from office operations to marketing and communications, the type of materials we’re printing our posters, flyers and banners on. The Sustainability Ambassador is part of our communications strategy to engage people in this initiative and to let them know what we’re doing.

“Another example is an interactive exhibit happening at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum called The Power of Music: Sustainability and the JUNOS, which is dedicated to different sustainability themes and features exhibits by Bruce Cockburn as well as Buffy Sainte-Marie, Neil Young, and Sarah Harmer. And of course we use social media and the JUNOs website to engage people.”

Stratton, who holds a Masters in Environment and Management from Royal Roads University in Victoria and worked “in the not-for-profit and the for-profit sector of the sustainability realm” before launching Strategin Solutions in 2007, continues.

“Purchasing is a huge part of what we do, so that’s everything from venues to suppliers and caterers. We look to integrate sustainability considerations in all our dealings, so for example we deal with the venues on issues of waste, water, energy issues and their own internal purchasing practices, like what sort of tissue they’re keeping in the bathrooms. We really get down to the nitty-gritty.

“With our caterers, we have minimum objectives and targets in terms of what we’re looking for - for locally produced or organic foods, using the Ocean Wise guidelines for sustainable seafood, that kind of thing.”

CARAS and the Juno Awards also work with two other partner organizations, Carbonzero and Bullfrog Power, to support their sustainability efforts. Bullfrog Power provides CARAS with clean, renewable electricity (and has for the past six years) while Carbonzero — now in its fourth year of partnership — guides the offset of greenhouse gas emissions generated by energy consumption and travel of organizers and attendees.

Cockburn, meanwhile, is featured in a PSA (“An exhortation really,” he laughs) that CARAS and the Juno Awards will disseminate via their social media networks and that will air inside Regina’s Brandt Centre prior to the Juno broadcast April 21. The PSA is also included in the Royal Saskatchewan Museum exhibit, on now until July 31.

“Nobody’s mentioned anything, but I’d be happy to participate in anything they come up with. And if I were at the Juno awards I don’t know that it would be much different. I guess I could get up and make a speech about this stuff which would be an interesting thing to do in that context though a hard audience to play to (laughs).

“The Junos are doing as much as anybody could do,” Cockburn offers. “They’re trying. Wherever possible they are using sustainable materials and they’re trying to promote the idea of sustainability among those coming to the Junos and those involved in various ways. There aren’t many examples of businesses taking advantage of a public situation like that to promote these ideas. So it’s very encouraging.”

Adds Strategin’s Stratton: “Sustainability isn’t a trend. It’s the way of the future of doing business. It’s sort of becoming part of the DNA of CARAS and the Juno Awards which is ultimately one of our end goals with the sustainability initiative.”

March 4, 2013
The Independent Media Group

Bruce Cockburn: Written in Fire
by Sam Broussard

A few years back, local men’s clothier and music lover Frank Camalo realized that he was traveling farther than he wanted to hear the music he loved. So he made the decision with his friend, fellow music lover Tony Morrow, to do what he had to do in order to hear what he had to hear: bring the music to Lafayette. They got their feet wet in the dicey promoting game with a few house concerts, then dove into the deep end and underwrote the Lucinda Williams concert at the Acadiana Center for the Arts. There followed shows featuring Alejandro Escovedo with Chuck Prophet, Graham Parker and Paul Thorn.

Different artists all, but what unites them are unique visions carved into highly individual songs that only they could have written. And on Wednesday, March 6 at Vermilionville, serious music lovers will have the opportunity to fall into the vision of one of the best songwriters in the English language, Ottawa native Bruce Cockburn.

You may be unfamiliar with his work or have never heard of him, but our neighbors to the north have chosen to honor him with his own postage stamp. That alone is no reason to hear anyone, but as a little measuring tool to help you decide how to spend an upcoming Wednesday evening, you might ponder that.

With a career that spans 31 albums, 11 Juno awards and decades of activism towards a better world and against the Madness, Cockburn has never let up an inch in offering us songs of stunning power built with melodies that engage on all levels. And the songs are thrust upward by some of the most happily ferocious guitar playing you and I will ever hear.

In New Orleans in the mid-80s, my college friend Shadrach Weathersby pulled out a record and told me to sit down and listen to a song. “No, really,” he said seriously. “Sit down.” The album was Stealing Fire and the song was called "If I Had a Rocket Launcher." I sat stunned. Whoever the singer was, he wasn’t just rearranging the elements of drama for the sake of a good song. I was hearing the son of Dylan’s Masters of War, and the son was going further. Dylan’s song had teeth; the son had sharpened his to points. The last line was “If I had a rocket launcher, some son of a bitch would die.”

Shad lifted the needle from the vinyl and stared at me. I was staring at the wall. This isn’t done, I thought. Where am I?

The song “Dust and Diesel” comes to mind, and “Nicaragua” and “Peggy’s Kitchen Wall,” as in who put the bullet hole in it? There was some dangerous music back in the 80s, punk and anarchy, but not much — and this was different, it wasn’t wild emotion. It was controlled.

The songwriter also knew what he was talking about; he hadn’t just made up songs about Guatemalan refugee camps from the newspapers, he had been there and seen the devastation up close. So it wasn’t a flailing about and screaming into a microphone kind of rage, rather a contained, purposeful, directed fury like an arrow sprung from lives ended flying toward the end of another life. That kind of rage.

Not all of the songs were like that. Cockburn can write about anything and writes about everything, and occasionally does it in French. And if, like most people, you ignore what’s being said, there’s still this fascinating music that ranges far, soaring through our Western sensibilities and on into other cultures. It’s folk music, yeah, but I’m afraid it’s not the kind that that the average folk can do. It’s a massive body of work fired up by massive ambition and dedication. But not every album was Stealing Fire, and nothing with that much rage has come through him since. Instead his talent grew and his vision became even more clear. It’s been decades since he’s written a series of songs with as much overt aggression, but a life full of that stuff isn’t possible or desirable for an artist unless burning out young is an option. He has said that the rage may be less but the outrage remains, and he’s written many, many songs as powerful as those on Stealing Fire.

Case in point: Cockburn’s latest album is Small Source of Comfort, one of his best albums in a long string of best albums. It includes the song “Each One Lost,” written after a trip to Kandahar, Afghanistan to visit with the Canadian soldiers and his brother, an ER doctor who joined the military later in life. The song was a direct response to the death of two Canadian soldiers as Cockburn stood on the tarmac for the solemn procession when the two coffins were flown home to their final resting place. It’s an aggressively loving song.

A collection of songs from a thoughtful and on on-the-scene observer will have such moments, yet it’s hardly a bleak album. "Call Me Rose" concerns the writer’s dream of Nixon awakening as a poor single mother in the projects. It’s a party, a really smart one. The song Radiance, a short, sharp portrait of a woman, is probably about a soldier, probably a helicopter pilot. The music is Eastern in nature and sounds very, very old. And there are other songs that I hope you hear soon.

A supporter of Canadian troops, he expresses “skepticism” about the war itself, a word he probably chose carefully, yet he also carefully examines, from a Christian perspective, that perhaps it’s beholden on the strong to prevent the weak from being bullied and preyed upon — or, as he says, how best to love one’s neighbor. This ability to examine the darkest ethical conundrums of the human condition and express it in song is why he is so popular in his native Canada — a gentle, advanced country and not, on the whole, rabidly concerned with the fear inspired by the animal parts of our nature.

Another thing to know is that Bruce Cockburn is a very spiritual man, and has spent most of his adult life seeking in both traditional and unorthodox ways. In published interviews he speaks about the matter with an elegant concision burnished with humility.

For many of us, when the Rodgers and Hart era gave way to Lennon and McCartney, Dylan, Cohen, Joni, Waits and Newman, good songs that could change your world view were always piled up in many American living rooms. Bruce Cockburn is one of those people, and they seldom come to Lafayette.

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

Bruce spoke to me from his room in Orlando, where he was lodged on this current tour. He had his wife and young daughter with him, and happy squealing could be heard in the background.

SB: Since you write your own songs, your body of work is now so large that I view it as a philosophy, questions from an earthling and sometimes even answers, even if they’re not presented as such. Given that you’ve traveled hard and seen the best and the worst of us, and given that you’ve got an album called Humans, I think it’s fair to ask your opinion: what’s wrong with us?

BC: (laughter) That’s a complicated question. I think we have genetic problems we have to deal with. (I laugh) Our DNA has been affected by our origins. The Bible sort of colors it in certain ways in the myth of the Garden of Eden, and I don’t think there was a state of perfection like that, that we fell from. If there is such a thing as that former state of perfection, it’s the animal infancy that we grew out of. And as animals, before we evolved into the complicated creatures that we are, we were able to navigate our way through life with a simpler view of things. But we’re this weird combination of prey and predator, and we’re almost the only species like that, that I can think of. I think that affects our psychology in a huge way in that we’re consciously going back and forth between the peace-loving, grass-eating side of us and the carnivorous, aggressive side, and most of us have trouble reconciling those things. At the very bottom of it all, I think that’s the issue, and not one that we’re going to solve satisfactorily, so we’ve developed all these other ways of getting through and around the effects of it; they work sometimes and sometimes they don’t.

SB: The fear that comes from being the prey — that’s allowed me to get over my thing about ideology and just look at us as animals. That’s a deep down place to go to look for an answer to my question. I don’t think you can go any further than that.

BC: I can’t, anyway. You can ascribe various attributes that we have to demonic or divine influences but I think that’s after the fact, I think that’s part of the attempt to rationalize the complexity that we’ve inherited. I do think those things exist, I think there is evil in the world and I think there’s a God, and that the evil is largely a product of our own pathology, and the divine has to work through us in the state we are (in). The divine manifests in the electrochemical processes in our brains; just as much as any other experience, we can have those. The materialist in us and the spiritually inclined are both right. The people who deny the existence of God and say it’s all chemistry are correct, as far as they’re going, and the people who say there is a God are also right. To me it’s a simple equation; it shouldn’t be as hard to get along but it is. But as I said, basically the only way the divine can touch us is through who we are. When we experience a flash of inspiration, or a flash of insight into the workings of the cosmos, that flash happens in your brain, it happens to the chemical, electrical firings in your brain. It’s all the same thing. You can’t separate it out.

SB: You grew up in a religiously shaped environment but you mentioned about having a flash of experiencing the divine. Were you overcome with some sensation like that?

BC: I’ve had encounters like that more than once in my life. It’s not a regular occurrence; it would be nice if it were. But the most dramatic example perhaps, was in the end of 1969 when I got married for the first time. We got married in the Church because my wife thought that was a good idea and I liked the idea because I was fascinated with medieval things and I liked the idea of a stone church and stained glass and all that stuff, and I was interested in spiritual matters but I didn’t consider myself a Christian particularly. We got married in an Anglican church, or what here would be an Episcopal church, and I liked the ritual, all the exterior stuff of it. But right at the moment when we were exchanging rings … we’re standing at the altar and there were very few people there: my immediate family and her immediate family and that was it, and the priest of course, and as we were exchanging rings I became aware that there was somebody else there that I couldn’t see but I was absolutely convinced there was a presence on the altar with us, that was as palpable as if they were visible. And I figured, well, we’re in a Christian church, it’s gotta be Jesus. Who else would it be? It was really stunning – I mean it didn’t knock me down; I wasn’t unable to complete the ceremony and that sort of stuff, but it was very deeply affecting. And it gave me pause for thought. I had to say, okay, if there’s somebody who’s that real to me, who shows up like that, then it’s really someone I had better begin paying attention to.

BC: Before then, I hadn’t, because my interest was much more intellectual before that. I felt the reality — I don’t know when it started, I think it was in my teens that I got the idea that there was a lot more to the universe than meets the eye. Then it became a question of speculating and studying up on what that might be. I read a lot of philosophers and a lot of religious stuff – not so much Christian stuff because I’d grown up in, not in a religious household particularly, but churchgoing, like a normal American upbringing for the time.

BC: Basically that’s right. And to some extent at other times. We had teachers who would talk about it a little bit, and we said the Lord’s Prayer in the morning at the school …

BC: Yeah, this in Canada, right? Where we don’t have a constitution that says you can’t do that. That’s probably changed by now. Don’t forget, this was 50 years ago or more I started going to school, so things were somewhat different. But we said the Lord’s Prayer; we did not pledge allegiance to the flag (laughter). It was quite a different atmosphere than my peers in the US might have experienced, but other than that it was probably the same, kids are kids. So there was enough of that to bring familiarity with the language and trappings of Christianity but it didn’t really go deeper than that, so when I got interested in spiritual things I got into the occult, and Buddhism, the alternative stuff that was floating around, that was beginning to be widely visible in that era, in the sixties, from 1950 on. But when this thing happened at the wedding, I had been kind of leaning closer to Christianity anyway, and it brought me closer still. I didn’t become a Christian then officially to myself on that date – that came later with another encounter — but it really reinforced that and nudged it along in a big way. And now, I don’t know if I think of myself as a Christian at this point — there’s too much about organized Christianity that is political and all the rest of it – but there’s no question in my mind that there was a divine presence.

BC: That’s another thing you can’t separate out, I mean the only records we have of it — other than what appears in your own heart — are records that were written down by people long after the fact, and people have fought and killed each other over what was going to be in those records. And it’s not coincidental to me that three thousand years before the Christian story is set, there was a guy in Egypt who was born of a virgin and had twelve disciples and was killed and rose from the dead.

BC: That was Horus, the Egyptian god Horus. It’s the same story. Three thousand years earlier. So it keeps coming back, or it’s another story using the same death. And I don’t know what the answer to that one is, I don’t think there’s enough to have any sense of competence around that. But that knowledge has, among other things, made it difficult for me to categorically say that I’m a Christian, but I have tremendous respect for it and I leave open the possibility that I may be coming back around to that.

BC: It might be, or it might be something that we have to make up for ourselves, that appeals to us in a way that makes it something we perpetuate. I mean, I don’t know how these things work; there’s a lot of mystery in the world, especially when you start dealing with the issue of God and the interface between God and people. Things get very mysterious indeed.

SB: I thought that when I got to be this age that I would actually understand a few things, but instead, mysteries get wider.

BC: Yeah, we start to understand — at least in my case; I can’t speak for anybody else — the understanding that comes with age has more to do with human behavior (laughter). I know a lot more about what I can take at face value and what I can’t in terms of what to expect from people.

SB: You’ve been really forthcoming when people pose these kinds of questions for you, you’ve been very honest about it. What about down here on the ground?

BC: The most pressing issues to me are environmental ones. Water is the thing that’s in the most jeopardy. People in the southeastern US, it’s hard to imagine the shortage of water. In the Midwest, in Canada there’s been a drought for years now. The big snowfalls they’re having right now in that area are not enough to offset that drought. There might be more that could happen of course. But the environmental changes that we’ve brought on ourselves … to me the vast weight of scientific opinion counts. It says that we’re a major contributing factor to the climatic change that we’re experiencing. And we’re not doing anything about that. We’re arguing about it instead of fixing it.

BC: It comes down to greed again, then, doesn’t it? Self-interest, the same thing. I worry for us because of that. I think that the world’s not going to get any better anytime soon because we aren’t doing enough. People are trying, but so far no one in a position of power, decision-making power, seems to be in that group.

SB: Well, he said “it’s an engineering problem with an engineering solution.” At least you can say to skeptics that the CEO of Exxon said it’s real. That should put an end to the argument right there.

What then followed was a fun discussion about why aren’t oil companies investing in the solution so they can profit from it? And on futures speculation and the economic gambling done by “really smart people.” Much of my recording is marred by a passing train. That happens a lot.

SB: You’re a hell of a guitar player and you were when you were quite young. You’re capable of some rarified harmonic richness, yet you remain accessible enough to maintain a huge fan base. Are you doing exactly what you like to do, or have you ever felt constrained at times by this accessibility factor?

BC: No, not really. To some extent I think the way I’m attached to the way I use them (harmonies) is out of habit as much as anything. But no, I’ve never felt that I had to tone something down for the sake of making sense to people. In the context of a given song, yeah, because the song has to work as a whole. Like writing a song like Pacing the Cage and throwing in an atonal bridge might be … wrong. (laughter) But I don’t feel constrained, it’s based on the choice of style I’m working with.

SB: The great American songwriters – several of whom are Canadians – Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young – don’t seem to sell that well once they age. Joni Mitchell would rather paint. You’ve been supported in every decade of your career by the Canadian fan base. Is there something about Canadians in that they’re more willing to follow a songwriter down into some demanding territory? Do they really not care how old an artist gets? What I’m trying to ask, is the Canadian audience less dumbed down than here?

BC: (laughter) I’m not sure. It’s tempting, to want to say yes to that, but I don’t know if I can justify it with fact. They would not show my videos if I had them – and we do; over the years I’ve made quite a few, but not lately, because nobody’s going to show them.

BC: It is an issue in Canada too. But I think you’re mistaken about Leonard Cohen, he’s as big as he ever was; he’s in the middle of an arena tour. But if you measure his record sales, it’s probably not what it once was.

BC: All over the world. He had a tour that lasted three years. His monitor guy, who used to work for me, I was out on one of the shows, and it was terrific. I saw it in Oakland, California, in a big theater, a three thousand seater, and it was jammed to the rafters. He put on a fantastic show. That was one stop – that was almost the last stop of a three-year tour that he’d been on. So he got finished with that then he decided he wanted to do the same thing only he wanted to do it in arenas, so that’s what he’s doing now. I don’t know how well it’s going for him. But that theater tour was very successful.

It’s not an across the board observation you can make about that, but certainly Joni’s less active, Neil appears to be less active. It’s hard to generalize, because you never know when they’re going to surprise you with something.

SB: It’s just gratifying to know that people are still buying records from artists who have had long careers. I’m thinking you’ll have a good show here in Lafayette. They’ll get what you do.

Lafayette-based guitarist/songwriter Sam Broussard performs internationally as a solo artist, accompanist and with the popular Cajun band Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys.

Photo by Pam Doyle. Bruce Cockburn plays in an afternoon workshop at the Canmore Folk Music [no date provided].

Posted: February 27, 2013

Vue Weekly

Pacing the stage
Bruce Cockburn on watching himself onscreen
by Paul Blinov

Though its title suggests a figure feeling encircled by the world at large, Pacing the Cage actually seems to find Bruce Cockburn at a state of general peace, or at the very least, grounded in his element.

The film, showcasing as part of the Global Visions Film Festival, follows his 2009 Slice of Life tour (the same chunk of roadtime that yielded a concert album of the same name). We see Cockburn perform, share stages with Roméo Dallaire, jam with Sarah Harmer, watch rehearsals for a tribute concert to himself and ruminate on his writing and career. Director Joel Goldberg keeps the cameras fairly unobtrusive, capturing some behind-the-scenes footage, performance cuts and compiling a swath of interviews to craft a rounded sketch of the man.

Pacing the Cage would benefit from a longer runtime to flesh itself beyond sketch into a fuller, deeper portrait. I don't mean that it would have to be more critical to be effective (though it's clearly coming from a place of appreciation, co-produced by Cockburn's manager), but there isn't a whole lot of plumbing of depths of a person going on here. Still, even in its wide-angle approach, it does offers a compelling image of one of Canadian folk's elder statesman, content with his status while still trying to use it for good and for honest artistic exploration. Plus there are some stunning concert cuts that highlight why anyone might want to emphasize the guy anyway.

Actually, Cockburn himself comes off as one of the most compelling voices about himself, level-headed with just a hint of self-deprecation and snark (on the environment: "We're fucked"). That was also certainly the case when he took a call from Vue one Friday afternoon to discuss the film, watching himself with an audience, and how realizing belief altered (and didn't alter) his approach to songwriting.

VUE WEEKLY: I'm assuming you've seen Pacing The Cage at this point. What were your first impressions of the film?

BRUCE COCKBURN: The first time I saw it, it was still a rough cut. Well, it was almost finished—the last rough cut before you call it a fine cut. So I was looking at it for how it worked as a film as well as what it was. But the second time I saw it was in a theatre for a film festival, with an audience present. They were quite different experiences; the film works for me very well. I thought that Joel Goldberg did a really good job putting it together. When you watch yourself on film like that, there's always a degree of embarrassment, and a degree of "Aww jeez, if I had just done that, said this, whatever." I found that to be minimal in this case—I've had much worse experiences with that than with this film. And it's very subjective, too: If I would pull out stuff that caused that reaction, other people would go, 'What are you talking about?' So that's inescapable, especially the first time through, watching yourself.

Watching it with an audience held up a different kind of mirror to it, in a way. It's less about what I think of it [than] what they're going to think about it. That's a whole other, y'know, kind of concern. But people responded very well.

VW: Did you find, for those moments you found embarrassing, they felt different with the audience present?

BC: Yeah, although it was hard to separate that fact from the fact that it was the second time I'd seen it. Things that make you wince the first time don't make you do the same way because you're already hardened to it. ... But in the audience, I'm thinking: 'I came off OK in the film. If there had been real red flags—"I look like an idiot there"—we would've cut that out, or I would've agitated strongly to have Joel cut it out, anyway, because of the nature of the film. It's a film about me; we're not trying to be journalists with this film, and so we can afford to be a little pickier about how I'm presented in it. People said all these nice things that ended up in the film; I had nothing to do with that. The only involvement I had in the making of the film up until looking at the rough cut was my presence in the interviews and in the performances. So I didn't exercise any influence whatever on the choice of materials that went into it or the selection of people to talk about me.

VW: In the film, one thing that comes out is the discussion of All of Diamonds being the moment you decided you were Christian, or maybe realized that for yourself. Do you think that having that realization, and being conscious of that, changed your approach to songwriting at all?

BC: It affected the content initially, for a few years maybe, because it was very much on my mind, which would be the case with anything you discover. It's a cliché about people who discover a new cult, or join alcoholics anonymous and suddenly get dry, that they'll go and tell everybody all about it. And I guess I did the same thing. But in terms of the process of songwriting, it didn't affect that. It's always been a question of waiting around for a good idea, for that little flash of inspiration that will trigger something. That was true then, too.

Sat, Mar 2 (7:15 pm)
Pacing the Cage
Directed by Joel Goldberg
Metro Cinema at the Garneau

Posted February 22, 2013
Almanac Weekly

Bruce Cockburn plays Bethel Woods this Saturday
by Crispin Kott

Legendary Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarist Bruce Cockburn makes his lone stop in our region on a brief solo tour this Saturday, February 23 when he visits the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. Cockburn will perform an expanded take on the solo segments of his recent full-band tour in support of his album Small Source of Comfort.

“From the point of view of the actual performance, it’s a much more intimate shared experience with the audience when it’s just me on the stage,” said Cockburn in a telephone interview.

Cockburn, who suffered terrible stage fright early in his career, still feels anxious before a performance, but he has learned to adapt. “I’m not one of those people that loves to get out in front of people and show off,” he said. “There’s an aspect of performing that’s terrifying. It’s still there, even though it’s faint in the background. When I started, that really was an issue, and my motivation was that I wanted people to hear the songs, and if I didn’t play them, nobody would hear them. But in most circumstances, there’s a real warmth in performing that I appreciate.”

Fans should expect to hear songs from the span of Cockburn’s long career – a philosophy that he used at least in part on Small Source of Comfort, his 31st album. The final song on the record, “Gifts,” is a longtime concert-closer, stretching all the way back to 1968. Asked what it will mean to play on the same hallowed ground as the famous festival, Cockburn replied coyly.

“I wasn’t at Woodstock; I was busy that weekend,” he said. “But I saw the movie. It is a piece of history, and it was kind of the good part of the end of the ‘60s – Altamont, of course, being the other part.”

Back then, Cockburn had already charted his own course. “If I’d have kept up with the course of studies I was on, I’d have had a Bachelor’s degree and I’d have been qualified to teach in high school,” he said. “My parents were anxious for me to have something to fall back on, but I intuitively knew that if you’re going to be a real artist, you’d better not have anything to fall back on, because it’s counterproductive.”

Cockburn is spending his downtime these days not writing new music, but instead putting his memories to paper for a forthcoming autobiography. “I have a contract with a publisher to write a memoir,” he said. “The first draft is overdue by more than two years, so all of the creative energy is going into the book.”

Cockburn said that he was contacted by HarperCollins following the worldwide success of the controversial Christian novel The Shack, in which God makes frequent mentions of his music. (“I don’t know if it’s a great piece of literature,” Cockburn said of William P. Young’s bestseller, “but it’s good enough.”) “When they approached me, they said they were looking for a spiritual memoir,” he explained. “It has presented a challenge. To put things in a spiritual context: I don’t even know what that means. I guess by the end of the book I’ll know what that means.”

An Evening with Bruce Cockburn, Saturday, Feb. 23, 8 p.m., $49/reserved, $54/day of show, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts’ Event Gallery, 200 Hurd Road, Bethel; www.bethelwoodscenter.org, www.brucecockburn.com.

Bruce Cockburn discusses his spirituality and his forthcoming memoirs
by Dan MacIntosh

Anyone who has spent any time exploring Bruce Cockburn’s music knows what a complex artist he is. He is as spiritual as he is political, and as much a master musician as a lyrical poet. Cockburn will soon release his written memoirs, which he promises will take a deeper look at his continuing spiritual journey. In addition, a Cockburn documentary is also on the way.

Although these two projects aren’t as exciting as news of an upcoming musical release, they nevertheless give his many devoted fans the prospect of more insight into one of modern music’s consistently intriguing figures.

Stereo Subversion: I notice you don’t have a new album to promote these days, so what’s in the works?

Bruce Cockburn: What’s in the works is a book. That’s kind of taking up all the energy that probably would have come up with an album by now. I got a deal to write a memoir, like everybody’s doing, a couple of years ago. The first draft is quite overdue, so there’s kind of a rush on to get this done. I’m about four chapters into it. I can’t tell you much about how it’s going to end up yet because it’s very much a first draft. That’s what’ going on.

There’s also, in terms of stuff that people could look for, if not available commercially yet, a DVD of a concert – well, actually, it’s a documentary that was done on me for Canadian TV with some performance footage in it. It came out pretty well. It was on TV in a slightly abbreviated version. The longer version has been shown at a couple of film festivals. Eventually, we’ll have DVDs for people. As far as an album, that’s probably going to have to wait until all this other stuff is out of the way.

SSv: How comfortable are you with writing a book? Is that a type of writing that comes naturally to you?

Bruce: No, it’s not. [Laughs] It’s interesting. It’s different and somewhat challenging because you have to sustain a focus for such an extended period. Songwriting is a real short time event, you know. Even songs that take a long time relatively speaking, only happen in bursts. It’s not like you sit down for six weeks and work on a song, day in, day out.

It may take me that long to write a song, but I’ll write one verse and a couple weeks will go by and I’ll think of another idea and add to it, and that kind of thing. Now this is not common. Usually I’ll write in much more compressed time than that, but it has happened. But that’s totally different from what a book calls for, which is sustained energy and focus over a year or two. There’s a bit of a learning curve for me in terms of that.

My songs are generally based in life, but they’re frequently slightly fictionalized. I may change a detail here or there because it makes it a better song or because the rhyme scheme needs it. It’s not literally autobiographical, whereas the book is.

SSv: I’ve noticed over the years, when you’ve written songs you’ve also put in the album notes where they were written and the time period when they were written. Is the book going to be a little bit like a journal in the way that you organize the book?

Bruce: I don’t know how it will end up. I don’t see it being like that, exactly, although it could end up more that way than I’m picturing right now. There’ll be a lot of steps between finishing the first draft, and actually getting it out. My original thought was to have it be not chronological, but just to be made up of a lot of vignettes; when you add them all up, you get a picture of a life. And it may still turn out to be that, although the way I’m working on it now, it is chronological, starting with childhood and moving forward. The organization of it may change between now and publication, I don’t know.

It’s supposed to be a spiritual memoir, so whatever that means. I’m not even sure what that really means, but that’s what the publisher’s asked for.

Bruce: There’s going to be a certain emphasis on that side of life, I think. Because it is a memoir and because the people who buy it are going to be interested in personal details too, we think, there’s a lot of stuff about me in there.

SSv: If it’s a spiritual journey, where would you say you’re at on your spiritual journey now?

Bruce: It’s an ongoing quest. I don’t think it will stop when I die, either. I believe that my relationship with God is central to my life. It is the most important thing in my life. That being said, I don’t spend as much time thinking about that as I probably should. I currently work with a guy that does dream analysis that helps me pursue that relationship with God and kind of understand where I’m at with it.

Beyond that, it’s hard for me to characterize my beliefs in a simple way because I don’t subscribe to a namable faith or religion. I’ve moved through an acquaintanceship with a few different things and a deep involvement with Christianity and I’m pretty close to that still, but I just have too many questions to feel comfortable calling myself a Christian at this point. But I’m still very close to that.

SSv: You’re working on this book, but that doesn’t stop you from writing songs. You’re still writing songs I would hope.

Bruce: Not at the moment because all the creative energy is going into the book. Any ideas that I have time for…I’ve also got a 14-month old baby at home, so I’m pretty busy. So, between the baby and the book, there’s not too much room for anything else right now. There’s barely enough time for me to practice the songs I currently have. There is enough, but just. I always have to keep practicing to maintain the songs that I have. I wouldn’t rule it out. Never say never. So far, it’s taking the case with where writing’s taking the backseat.

Bruce: Better than I was the first time around. I mean, I don’t think I was a terrible father the first time, but I was much more concerned, as young men tend to be, about things other than family. I was worried about my art more than I am now. I take my art very seriously. I don’t want to let it down or have it let me down, but at the same time, I don’t worry about it as much as I did when I was young. I just worried a lot more about everything. That made my relationship with my first daughter a little more distant when she was young. We have a good relationship now, but I wasn’t there for her as much as I am for the new one.

SSv: Tell me more about this DVD that’s coming out. You said it was a documentary?

SSv: How did this all come about? Did they approach you and say they wanted to explore your work?

Bruce: Bernie [Finkelstein] was really instrumental in getting it going, and I don’t know whether he had the original idea, or the filmmaker Joel Goldberg had the idea. But we started talking about it quite a while back. And, in fact, it’s the same tour that the live album came out couple years ago is based on or is drawn from. So it’s the same music as is on that live album. There might be one or two different songs, but it’s not a concert film.

There’s a lot of talking. It’s more of a portrait of me on tour. It’s got several performances of songs in it and, like I said, I don’t really remember what got it started. We were working on it at the same time as the live album. We had the intention of doing both. It took a lot longer, I suppose, to find the financing to get the film done than it did to do the album.

Ideally, in a perfect world, they would have both come out at the same time. Which I would have preferred because they belong together in a way, but that’s not how it works.

Lieutenant Governor hosts closing Diamond Jubilee Gala at Roy Thomson Hall

TORONTO, The Honourable David C. Onley, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and Mrs. Ruth Ann Onley are pleased to host a DIAMOND JUBILEE GALA to present Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medals to members of the Order of Canada residing in Ontario, members of the Order of Ontario and other deserving individuals. This will draw to a close Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee Year, on Wednesday, February 6, 2013, the 61^st anniversary of The Queen's accession to the Throne.

In keeping with the tradition of honouring milestone years of service, the commemorative medal was created to mark the 60^th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the Throne. The medal serves to honour the contributions and achievements made by Canadians from all sectors of society.

Their Honours will be joined by a number of prominent Canadians who will also act as distinguished medal presenters to ensure that each of their peers receives his or her medal in a dignified and meaningful way.

Following the medal presentations, guests will enjoy a short performance by some of Canada's best known performers, including Tafelmusik, and Michael Burgess, Liona Boyd, Bruce Cockburn and Tom Cochrane, themselves members of the Order of Canada.

Event Overview

In keeping with the tradition of honouring Her Majesty's milestone years of service, a commemorative medal was created to mark the 60^th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the Throne. The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal also serves to honour the contributions and achievements made by Canadians from all sectors of society. Approximately 60,000 medals were struck for distribution to deserving citizens across Canada. This commemorative medal is part of the Canadian Honours System.

In order to ensure that medals are presented with appropriate dignity and respect, The Lieutenant Governor of Ontario invited all living members of the Order of Canada in Ontario, the Order of Ontario and other deserving individuals, to receive their medals at a gala celebration at Roy Thomson Hall (RTH). The first gala took place on June 18, 2012, where more than 600 medals were presented. This closing celebration will include those who were not able to attend in June.

A number of prominent Canadians have been enlisted as distinguished ambassadors to join Their Honours in the rotunda at Roy Thomson Hall to present Diamond Jubilee Medals to their peers. Each will present medals to no more than 20 recipients, to ensure a personal experience. After receiving the medal, guests will find their seats in the theatre where they will enjoy one hour of entertainment by some of Canada's best known artists, including Tafelmusik and Michael Burgess, Liona Boyd, Bruce Cockburn and Tom Cochrane, themselves members of the Order of Canada.

February 6, 2013 by LGOntario

January 31, 2013
The Church of England Newspaper

Bruce Cockburn talks about Bono, Corporate Greed and Church
by Derek Walker

Many communities have people whose lives encapsulate the values that they hold most dearly. The Greenbelt Festival has had a few and the most recent to visit is Canadian singer-songwriter, Bruce Cockburn.

His integrity is what most endears him to the festival’s faithful, both artistically and spiritually. Driven by faith, he knows how to write about justice in a way that connects, rather than sounding preachy.

He has visited occasionally since the early ‘80s. I was stewarding at the time and remember his set, particularly for his intricate guitar work. Behind the scenes, we heard that Bono wanted to watch him and would be disguised as a steward.

“He came backstage,” Cockburn recalled, as we spoke at this year’s event. “He came in a baseball cap and a parking monitor’s badge. It was fun. They snuck him in and were all excited, ‘We snuck bono into the tent without anybody knowing!’”

That Bono should be so keen to see the Canadian says something of Cockburn’s influence and Bono remains a fan today. This year, Canadian TV showed a film made during his Slice o’Life tour. As the film opens, Bono looks at the camera, talking the words to Cockburn’s visceral “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”. He ends with the jealous line, “If I had a rocket launcher, he wouldn’t have written those songs!”

The timing of that backstage meeting intrigued me. Cockburn had been playing songs from his Stealing Fire album, largely inspired by visiting Central America when the Sandinista movement was trying to rebuild El Salvador. Ideologically unhappy with their efforts, the American government accused them of being communist and attacked them with military power.

“Rocket Launcher” was a direct response to what Cockburn saw of such bullying. The Sandinistas were encouraging education for the poor and supporting real development. To have that crushed by fighter planes attacking innocent villages enraged Cockburn to the extent that the song exclaims how, had he the firepower, “I’d make somebody pay!”

A couple of years later, when U2 released The Joshua Tree, inspired by visiting America, their song “Bullet the Blue Sky” shared that territory. Speaking of corruption, military deals and “fighter planes across the mud huts as children sleep,” the song ends with the line, “See the sky ripped open / See the rain coming through the gaping wound / Howlin’ the women and children who run into the arms of America.”

What arms – welcoming or military? The latter is the only way I can read that song and I had to wonder whether that Greenbelt night was the root of one of U2’s most iconic tracks.

Cockburn does not know. “We talked about stuff that we were thinking about – which included that – but I wouldn’t know whether I had influenced the song or not.”

Central America was just one of many tours around the globe, visiting ordinary people, often in rural communities. The songs written on those travels are highly personal and act as a window into the lives of those affected by the world’s richer nations and corporations.

Corporate greed is a regular target, but Cockburn is no blind dogmatist on the issue. “As corporatism has expanded, everybody gets caught in the idea that if somebody over there has this x, y or z, then I should be able to have it too.

“To me the picture is very large and complex, but it really comes down to two faces of a similar issue, which is: how we treat each other and how we treat the planet. If we exploit each other, there’s a good chance that at the same time, we’re also exploiting the planet in a way that’s not healthy. So very often you find the same bad guys related to every issue.”

The same mix of support and wariness marks his views on the Occupy movement.

“I have the same reservations about the effectiveness of that movement as I have about my own mouthing off,” he commented wryly. “But I think it’s really worthwhile to get out there and try. It’s like the Hippocratic Oath: first, don’t hurt anybody, then fix them if you can. We should have the same attitude: don’t hurt anybody, but fix it if you can. The Occupy movement is a flawed, but important attempt to do that.”

The “mouthing off” that he so self-deprecatingly speaks of is the ethical side of his songwriting.

“I think you have to suspend any expectation of an outcome, when you get involved in issues of any kind,” he observed. “My own experience has taught me this over the years: if you go into it thinking you’re going to see the difference you make, you’re going to burn out fast. It’s better to just trust, because eventually, if there is enough popular will around a certain issue, it will change – but you may not live to see it. It’s important to do the work anyway, because if you don’t keep plugging away at it, everything gets worse.

“So for people in the public eye, one of the things we can do is mouth off and be heard. Where people take that is not really in our control.”

He does occasionally get response from listeners. Speaking of the “great blessing” of “touching testimonies” when people tell him of the effect songs have had on them as they grew up, he added dryly, “It always baffles me when I hear young people say they grew up with my music, because growing up with my parents’ music didn’t inspire me want to go out and buy a Rex Harrison record!”

A bigger delight in his life at the moment is his year-old daughter. Often, as people get older, they get more easy-going about the state of the world. Does he feel that way, or has fresh fatherhood given him a renewed concern for where we are headed?

“I look around at the things that are going on and think, all you can do is pray and trust, because there is so much crap headed for the fan. Much of it has already hit, but there’s more coming. What she grows up into, if I want to go there, can be quite terrifying. What can I do about that? Well, I can keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing all along, but not much more, because that’s all I know how to do.”

Mouthing off aside, his current release, Small Source of Comfort, probably has more instrumentals than any new album he has made. I wondered if this was a shift in his music-making…

“Unless I think of really good words!” he replied. “It’s too soon to know if it’s a pattern to look forward to in the future, but the older I get, the more songs I’ve written, the more I’ve said what I’ve had to say in words and the more appealing it becomes to just play notes that aren’t attached to a specific idea.”

Despite the quantity of music he has already put out, Small Source of Comfort must be among his best collections since that Stealing Fire release. Has he learned to perfect his trade or is it coincidence?

Naming another of his albums, he called it “Big circumstance, which is what I think of when I think of coincidence. It just is what it is, but I’m glad I got the songs I got. I don’t take it for granted – I never have. Any album I’ve made could have been the last one. So I’m just happy if I’m able to keep going.”

In his recent music, he seems to have placed less emphasis on his faith, which may have something to do with the churches he has met across the years.

“I don’t feel the same need for a church that I once did,” he admitted. ”When I first started thinking of myself as a Christian, I started going to an Anglican church, because it was the church I got married in, and I liked the priest. That became my church in Ottawa.

“But when I left Ottawa at the end of the ‘70s, I never found another place where I felt as in touch with the Spirit. It began to feel to me like if I was going to be in touch with the Spirit, it didn’t require a particular place; it was something that’s supposed to have happened all the time and I’m still in pursuit of that. So I kind of drifted away from church – although I miss communion.”

Unwelcoming churches, making him feel like he did not belong, were much of the problem. They were particularly insensitive to the needs of a travelling musician. “I would go down on a Sunday morning to the service. I’d get people looking at me like, ‘What are you doing here, you son of a bitch?’ Seriously, it was that bad sometimes!

“Other times, it was more welcoming, but I never felt that there was a community there for me, compared to what I’d experienced in Ottawa. Partly, that’s just familiarity, but when you’re a traveller, you don’t get to be very familiar with any given place. For most of my life, home has been base camp, so the idea of being part of a community at home is not viable.”

What keeps him going is the sense of his relationship with God, something in which he feels no different to any other human.

“The real calling that we all have as human beings is to make ourselves available to that relationship with God and do whatever that steers us toward.”

Then ending with a chuckle, he said, “That’s a recipe for anarchy, but so be it!”

Canadian Singer/Songwriter Bruce Cockburn Donates Archives to McMaster University

Cockburn thanks Mac for taking his ‘mongrel assortment’
by Graham Rockingham

Bruce Cockburn flies solo in Burlington, Ontario

Bruce Cockburn donates archives to McMaster University

McMaster University
Media advisory

McMaster to celebrate gift of Bruce Cockburn archives May 7, 2013

Juno Awards Enlist Bruce Cockburn To Spotlight Green Initiative
by Kim Hughes|

Bruce Cockburn announced as 2013 JUNO Awards Sustainability Ambassador

**- Artist also profiled in exhibit, The Power of Music: Sustainability and the JUNOS, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum -**

March 4, 2013
The Independent Media Group

Bruce Cockburn: Written in Fire
by Sam Broussard

Bruce Cockburn: The Troubador at 67
by Richard Wagamese

Posted: February 27, 2013

Vue Weekly

Pacing the stage
Bruce Cockburn on watching himself onscreen
by Paul Blinov

Posted February 22, 2013
Almanac Weekly

Bruce Cockburn plays Bethel Woods this Saturday
by Crispin Kott

Bruce Cockburn discusses his spirituality and his forthcoming memoirs
by Dan MacIntosh

Lieutenant Governor hosts closing Diamond Jubilee Gala at Roy Thomson Hall

Bruce Cockburn talks about Bono, Corporate Greed and Church
by Derek Walker

Canadian Singer/Songwriter Bruce Cockburn Donates Archives to McMaster University

Cockburn thanks Mac for taking his ‘mongrel assortment’ by Graham Rockingham

Bruce Cockburn flies solo in Burlington, Ontario

Bruce Cockburn donates archives to McMaster University

McMaster University Media advisory

McMaster to celebrate gift of Bruce Cockburn archives May 7, 2013

Juno Awards Enlist Bruce Cockburn To Spotlight Green Initiative by Kim Hughes|

Bruce Cockburn announced as 2013 JUNO Awards Sustainability Ambassador - Artist also profiled in exhibit, The Power of Music: Sustainability and the JUNOS, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum -

March 4, 2013 The Independent Media Group

Bruce Cockburn: Written in Fire by Sam Broussard

Bruce Cockburn: The Troubador at 67 by Richard Wagamese

Posted: February 27, 2013 Vue Weekly

Pacing the stage Bruce Cockburn on watching himself onscreen by Paul Blinov

Posted February 22, 2013 Almanac Weekly

Bruce Cockburn plays Bethel Woods this Saturday by Crispin Kott

Bruce Cockburn discusses his spirituality and his forthcoming memoirs by Dan MacIntosh

Lieutenant Governor hosts closing Diamond Jubilee Gala at Roy Thomson Hall

Bruce Cockburn talks about Bono, Corporate Greed and Church by Derek Walker

Cockburn thanks Mac for taking his ‘mongrel assortment’
by Graham Rockingham

McMaster University
Media advisory

Juno Awards Enlist Bruce Cockburn To Spotlight Green Initiative
by Kim Hughes|

Bruce Cockburn announced as 2013 JUNO Awards Sustainability Ambassador

**- Artist also profiled in exhibit, The Power of Music: Sustainability and the JUNOS, at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum -**

March 4, 2013
The Independent Media Group

Bruce Cockburn: Written in Fire
by Sam Broussard

Bruce Cockburn: The Troubador at 67
by Richard Wagamese

Posted: February 27, 2013

Vue Weekly

Pacing the stage
Bruce Cockburn on watching himself onscreen
by Paul Blinov

Posted February 22, 2013
Almanac Weekly

Bruce Cockburn plays Bethel Woods this Saturday
by Crispin Kott

Bruce Cockburn discusses his spirituality and his forthcoming memoirs
by Dan MacIntosh

Bruce Cockburn talks about Bono, Corporate Greed and Church
by Derek Walker