This interview came from page 68 of the January/February 1985 issue of TheOtherSide, a Christian magazine concerned primarily with social issues:
Why is it that after twelve albums and ten Juno awards (Canada's equivalent to the Grammy), Bruce Cockburn is still a well-kept secret in the United States? Over the years, this Canadian's music has evolved from an acoustic folk style to his current eclecticism of rock, reggae, and Afro-Latin rhythms. His lyrics are eloquent, powerful, and subtly suggestive of his faith in God. In fact, since his conversion to Christianity in 1974, his albums have consistently reflected that faith in a refreshing vernacular full of ingenious metaphors.
Maybe it's for these reasons Cockburn (pronounced CO-burn) can't be packaged and promoted to Americans. He defies neat categories. He's not overtly Christian enough to be embraced by the Christian music industry. And he has too much content -- philosophical, spiritual, and political -- to get secular radio or rock video play.
In his latest album,"Stealing Fire" , Cockburn's political sensibilities focus on Central America. After a trip to Nicaragua and to Guatemalan refugee camps sponsored by OXFAM, a relief and development organization, Cockburn wrote a trio of songs full of the sorrow and hope he witnessed in that bleeding region. He also experienced a "rage without brakes" as he watched hovering Guatemalan army helicopters harass refugee camps in Mexico. Out of that rage come his dynamic but atypical song, "If I had a Rocket Launcher", which is being promoted as one of the album's singles, along with "Lovers in a Dangerous Time", For the past six months, Cockburn and his excellent four-member band have been touring the United States, playing to sold-out clubs. During each performance, this gracious and unassuming artist speaks forthrightly about his trip to Central America. As a popular performer, Bruce Cockburn has another unusual characteristic: he's an enthusiastic reader of TheOtherSide.
Late last year Cockburn performed at Washington, D.C.'s Wax Museum Club, where we met for the following conversation.
Q: How did you come to be a Christian?
A: I was led to Christianity through a lot of oblique things. I read all of the Bible, C. S. Lewis (especially the children's books), Charles Williams and Thomas Merton. But when I became a Christian, I wasn't really sure what it meant. I felt the reality of Christ, and I felt him to be very close at hand. But I really didn't know what being a Christian meant. So I went to the Bible and to church to find out. I spent a lot of time being a fundamentalist because it was a safe place to start. Trying to take the Bible as literally as possible seemed a good way to avoid errors and misinterpretations. Of course, after a while it seemed there were a lot of inherent errors and misinterpretations in that course of action.
I guess my Christian experience has been different from a lot of people's. Every now and then, I force myself to watch one of those Christian TV shows like the "PTL Club". Sincere guys come on saying, "I was a drunkard, and I lost my my job. Then I found the Lord, and all of a sudden, my marriage was saved; my job was saved; I don't drink any more; and I'm a millionaire".
I have no reason to doubt those folks' sincerity. I could go on that show and say, "Well, I started out as an agnostic, went through Buddhism and black magic. Then I became a Christian -- and my marriage fell apart". For me, my faith is a whole other thing than those PTL guys' faith. And, although I have to say this with a certain caution, I know that no matter how much I screw up, God is still going to be there. A large part of my faith is trusting that God won't let me screw up beyond a certain point.
Q: How did Christian faith and political concerns come together for you? Being a baby boomer, did you have your political proclivities established before your conversion?
A: No, not really. In fact, my baby boomer background made me uncomfortable and suspicious of political movements. I went to a few demonstrations but that was more out of curiosity than any kind of commitment. Although I agreed with the sentiments being expressed, the demonstrations didn't seem like they would have much to do with anything. Of course, time proved that they did change things.
I saw that especially after going to Central America. The sixties had a ripple effect that showed people you could change the world. At least there was the possibility that people could accomplish something -- not anything perfect, but something workable.
But personally I didn't get interested in politics until I started looking at what it meant to love my neighbor. I had always been a loner, and the concept of loving the people around me was a novel one. I'm still not sure I know what that actually means. but that was partly why I ended up moving to Toronto four years ago instead of living in a smaller town or in the country.
In Toronto, I've made a deliberate effort to immerse myself in human society, a society I've never really felt a part of. And I've found a lot of good stuff. Part of that whole process has involved becoming more concerned about what is happening to the people around me.
The trip to Nicaragua really clinched that. In Nicaragua I witnessed a whole nation of people working together to better their situation. In contrast, the Guatemalan refugees are the terrible but obvious outcome of a society where people don't have a voice. Seeing this made me realize why we had politics at all -- and why this is really worth working at.
Q: In your last three albums, you paint the darkness of civilization around you. The only bright spots seem to be horizontal relationships with the people next to you -- or a perpendicular relationship with God.
A: That seems right. Unfortunately, I made a mistake with the relationship that I started out with, my marriage relationship. I made the mistake a lot of people make. I took it for granted. You grow enough just to get moving and then you stop. So now I'm very conscious of avoiding that in all areas. I certainly feel this artistically as well. You could say Mao comes in here. His cultural revolution got out of hand in a horrible way, but he seemed very much on the mark in terms of recognizing that countries and people need shaking up. The minute you start living through habit is the minute things go wrong. You lose your forward momentum. In a way, it was a great blessing that my marriage did end. It was very painful, but everyone is better off for it. Now I have to avoid making a trip out that constant change thing.
Q: Do you have any kids?
A: Yes. I have an eight-year-old daughter. She was my one ongoing worry about the break-up of the marriage. But she seems to be doing O.K. She lives with her mom, and I see her quite regularly.
Q: I know TheOtherSide gets many letters from people who feel very solitary in their struggle to be Christian, especially in the pursuit of political and social values that few other Christians seem to take seriously. Do you ever feel isolated? And how do you deal with that?
A: I do feel isolated sometimes, even when I'm around other Christians. In fact, I usually feel more isolated when I'm around other Christians -- the ones who call out, "Do you love Jesus?" or "Jesus loves you, brother!" I'm not isolated from them as people, but I'm completely cut off from that kind of rhetoric.
When I get together with the one or two Christian friends I do have, we can talk a big game sometimes. It's really fun and educational comparing notes on experiences or understandings of Scripture. But when it comes down to relating to God, that's a one-to-one thing for me. And even then, I tend to be pretty lax about it. Fortunately, God's always there, all the same. And God might give me a nudge every now and then. For that I'm really thankful. I've never gotten too far without getting a nudge.
Q: Do you feel it's a contradiction for a Christian to be alone? That in order to be a Christian one must be a part of a community or communing with others?
A: Well, it's nice to get the reinforcement of a community. but then again, what about all those solitary monks in the Middle Ages? Or the whole hermetic tradition in Christianity? I think for some people, community may be just right. But for those of us who don't benefit from community, who need a little more room, it's just as potentially distracting from the truth as being alone might be.
Q: I don't know if this is an issue for you, but a lot of readers of TheOtherSide -- and those of us at the magazine itself -- hold to simple living as a life-style. It helps us identify a bit with some of the world's poor. And it goes against the grain of the culture around us. Have you wrestled with issues of simple living yourself?
A: It's a very worthy thing, and it's something I'm disgracefully lacking in. I don't live particularly simply. But I don't think I'm particularly excessive about things either -- it's all relative. I don't value a lot of material stuff. if I spend my money frivolously, it tends to be on clothes and musical instruments.
In terms of spiritual work, I'm working on other areas right now and not worrying very much about simple living. Hopefully that won't be too destructive in the long run. I can try to say something in my own defense, but I know that's not what your asking.
Q: Maybe I was also asking what it's like to be rich and famous.
A: It's kind of neat! At first, I was terrified of it, and for a long time resisted being a "star".
Q: How did you do that?
A: Well, by refusing to do things like interviews, by not giving the business side of things any concessions -- which was all very easy to practice while I was a solo performer. I was afraid of getting tainted by something I imagined was there. And maybe if I had gotten a lot of attention when I was twenty-two years old, that would have been important. but after a while, it becomes a lot less threatening. You can take it or leave it. or enjoy it and have fun with it. So I accept it and say, "Thanks, Lord".
Q: What writers and musicians have influenced your work?
A: People like Ernesto Cardenal, Allen Ginsberg and Doris Lessing certainly. Bob Dylan, John Lennon, I like listening to David Bowie, Lou Reed and Grace Jones; they're ongoing favorites. I don't like all of what they do, but I always get their albums to see what they're up to.
Q: How about Dylan now? Do you still listen to him?
A: I like his new album. But I haven't liked much of his other recent stuff. It's too propagandistic, and it isn't anywhere near his capabilities as a writer. Actually there are certain albums I used to listen to in the sixties that I still pull out fairly often. I like Dylan's Blonde On Blonde and Highway 61 albums. And Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.
I like listening to people who don't do anything like what I do or to music I think I can borrow from. Coming from a country like Canada, that has no musical traditions, I try to borrow from everywhere. I like reggae and African pop music. For a while, I went through a period of looking through ethnic bins in record stores and picking out whatever looked interesting. In fact, I got into African traditional music before I became aware of African pop music. the guitar part in my song "Joy Will Find a Way" , is based on an Ethiopian thumb-harp piece.
Q: Do you feel you have any peers in the Christian music scene?
A: That's a loaded question! I've run into a few Christian performers, none of whose records I would go out and buy. Which is not to say they're not good. It's just not what I'm interested in listening to. I don't really go looking for Christian music that turns me on spiritually. I'm more interested in books doing that for me.
I am interested in music that makes my body want to move and makes points intellectually. Grace Jones or David Bowie or any of those people who address anything real in life -- or even address dumb things but do it with a sufficient degree of style that indicates some intelligence behind it -- that sort of music appeals to me.
Q: Why is it that you are so popular in Canada and hardly heard of in the United States? Is it indicative of different political climates? Or is it your content that rattles the American music industry?
A: I think it's content in general. We tried very hard to get my album The Trouble With Normal released in the States without success. Everyone told us it was a great album. But they didn't think it would sell.
Canada is almost an apolitical country. Or it's about as close as you can get to that. We have three major political parties on the federal level that are not very far apart, really. Because of the lack of breadth in that spectrum, we feel it doesn't matter who we vote for. It won't change our lives very much, maybe just some particular details. The faces change but the message remains the same.
My audience didn't -- until relatively recently -- tend to see things in political terms. I could talk about political things but they weren't taken that way. For instance, take an old song like "Burn" . It's overtly anti-American. And it's trying to make the point Canada has very much the same client-state relationship that your average Latin American country has with the United States. Nothing quite as drastic is at stake. We're better off so there's no resistance to the relationship. We don't have a dictator; we don't have the military trip. But if we were ever to swing too far to the left it would Prague '68 revisited. That's what the song is trying to say in a very lighthearted way. Canadians relate to "Burn" really well; we love to flirt with anti-Americanism in a humorous way because it makes us feel independent. But that's about as far as most of us take it.
When I started recording in the late sixties and early seventies, Canadians were starting to look around and ask, What is a Canadian? How come we have to live with only American music on the radio? This prompted the government to pass a law that stipulated that 30 percent of what is shown on television or played on the radio had to be Canadian in origin. Although I don't think it's the government's place to dictate what people should listen to, the law was pragmatically necessary to get any kind of original music business going in Canada.
Q: So your initial success in Canada was the product of this Canadian affirmative-action plan?
A: I was an unintentional beneficiary of this kind of mentality. It helped get me going. Although I never got much AM radio play, those regulations helped get me some radio time. Plus radio was a lot less tight then than it is now. A lot of different kinds of things got played.
I also did a lot of touring. And because I was playing solo, I could go anywhere. Money wasn't an issue. Over the years, an audience developed. And then when I became a Christian, some people dropped off and some came on. Then other changes started happening: I started playing more electric guitar and having a band. And now I've gotten into more noticeable political content. I get letters from some Christians who think I'm way off base now. And other Christians who are very supportive.
Q: I find Stealing Fire a highly political, highly erotic album that has maybe one song with classic Cockburn allusions to the spiritual realm. You put all kinds of experiences on the album -- unlike so much music that's one track on content.
A: You're right. I don't say "God" very much on Stealing Fire.
Q: What about the song, "Raise the Morning Star" ? Are you singing about resurrecting the Light to a dark world?
A: Actually, the phrase, "to raise the morning star" comes from the Australian aborigines. They sing to raise the morning star, literally. And of course, it's a beautiful image. That image went with the rest of the song, which was a kind of imaginary vision I had.
The place I used to live in downtown Toronto had a roof where I could stand. One night when I was looking at the lights of the city, I began thinking about all the people who were sleeping. All of them were dreaming, wishing things were better. And in their dreams, they were trying to make things better. Their dreams and wishes were trying to light the skies. And those sleepers were sending up the light that was being reflected off the clouds. To me, that's something God put there. And that's a God song of mine.
Q: During this tour, do you feel you have a responsibility to educate your audience about Central America? And do you ever wonder if they are really hearing your message?
A: I think every artist has the responsibility not necessarily to educate but at least to tell their audience how they see things. I feel strongly about Central American issues because I've been there. I felt close to the people. And I get frustrated and angry at the institutionalized misinformation that gets spread around North America.
Whether or not the audience hears me. I'd rather have them listen to me than Ted Nugent! Whatever an audience gets out of my music comes down to a matter of trust. I've been given this that I can do. I can't make too much of it; it's just what I do. At the same time, things have been put in front of me in my life. I have to assume there is a reason for that and that the songs I sing will have an effect on somebody, even if it's just one person who I never meet and never hear from.
The church that I went to when I lived in Ottawa was a very alive Anglican church. They used to have regular healing services -- which is unusual for a mainstream church. It was particularly unusual because the services worked a lot of the time. Once I asked the priest what it felt like, what was that energy like when he laid hands on people. And he answered that the people who got healed were oftentimes not the ones he laid his hands on. It was the ones in the back rows, the ones that came in just to get out of the rain, who got touched. In that way, he was kept from getting a swelled head from it all, and good was done.
I feel that was a lesson for me. I don't count on feedback from anybody to let me know if I'm doing well or getting across. Although it's nice to get that, there's a host of possible errors in relying on that. I just take it on faith that something good is coming out of my music.