(From the album "Bruce Cockburn") Look out the window, what do I see? cows hangin' out under spreading trees. ZOOM! they're gone behind the sign white letters pointing to the long white line and I'm going to the country o, la la la la la I'm going to the country sunshine smile on me I can smell the grass growing in the field wind in my hair tells me how it feels farm house, silver roof flashing by tractor-trailer truck says goodbye with a sigh and I'm going to the country o, la la la la la I'm going to the country sunshine smile on me birds singing, I'm singing in my bones doesn't much matter now where I'm going get it when I get there is what I'll do if I get enough I'll give some to you and I'm going to the country o, happy as can be I'm going to the country sunshine smile on me
(From the album "Bruce Cockburn") Musical friends are keeping me happy they know what I need now I can sleep on anyone's floor without feeling cold inside or outside me the closer we get the easier life be- comes for each of us we can sing songs and play at each other over wine in bottles or in pipes and we can pass on endings till the end we can laugh me and my musical friends nobody's quite sure just where they're going they'll find out soon enough when they get there some sunny morning or windy night if they can just keep moving and we can pass on endings till the end we can laugh me and my musical friends are keeping me happy they know what to do musical friends have many things to offer you and you can be one too (who ever heard of drinking wine from a pipe anyway?)
(From the album "High Winds White Sky")
Oh i have been a beggar
and shall be one again
and few the ones with help to lend
within the world of men.
One day i walk in flowers
one day i walk on stones
today i walk in hours
one day i shall be home
I have sat on the street corner
and watched the bootheels shine
and cried out glad and cried out sad
with every voice but mine.
One day i walk in flowers
one day i walk on stones
today i walk in hours
one day i shall be home
one day i shall be home
(From the album "Sunwheel Dance") go tell the sergeant-major to get that thing repaired they're losing their pawns in Asia there's slaughter in every square oh -- it's going down slow (2x) go get the fire department to bring that hose along and them and the schoolboy bandits can water each other's lawn oh -- it's going down slow (2x) everybody seems to be leaving better say your travelling prayers it don't matter how you get it it's where do you go from there oh -- it's going down slow (4x) God, damn the Hands of Glory that hold the bloody firebrand high; close the book and end the story of how so many men have died. let the world retain in memory that mighty tongues tell mighty lies; and if mankind must have an enemy let it be his warlike pride, let it be his warlike pride.
(From the album "Sunwheel Dance") up on the hillside you can see the cross shine out in the alley hear the hungry dog whine you and i, friend, sit waiting for a sign see how the sunset makes the lake look like wine. over the mountain i can hear myself called i want to come running but my window's too small the cliffs are so high and i might fall what were you saying? -- oh, it's nothing at all. yes, the world's in convulsions and the weather is fine buicks get bigger and five cents costs a dime i must get going, you know, there's not much time the road is waiting and i'm running out of rhyme. up on the hillside, see how the cross does shine.
(From the album "Sunwheel Dance") feet fall on the road bound to motion though chains be of gold they are chains all the same traveler on the bridge awakens to find it's not the river that flows but the bridge that moves o'er in the hand of the cloud liquid as time the heron's wings well know the grace of space
(From the film "Rumours Of Glory") (Originally from the album "Night Vision") i was up the road on easy street watching everybody stand around and cheat a man comes up and says "move along down to the corner where you belong" but mama just wants to barrelhouse all night long i hear the city singing like a siren choir some fool tried to set this town on fire tv preacher screams "come on along" i feel like fay wray face to face with king kong but mama just wants to barrelhouse all night long sometimes i wonder what i am i feel like i'm living in a hologram it doesn't seem to matter what's right or wrong everybody's grabbing and coming on strong but mama just wants to barrelhouse all night long
(From the album "Salt, Sun and Time") all the diamonds in this world that mean anything to me are conjured up by wind and sunlight sparkling on the sea i ran aground in a harbour town lost the taste for being free thank God He sent some gull-chased ship to carry me to sea two thousand years and half a world away dying trees still grow greener when you pray silver scales flash bright and fade in reeds along the shore like a pearl in sea of liquid jade His ship comes shining like a crystal swan in a sky of suns His ship comes shining.
(From the album "Joy Will Find A Way")
look away across the bay
yankee gunboat come this way
Uncle Sam gonna save the day
come tomorrow we all gonna pay
(Chorus:) and it's burn baby burn
when am I going to get my turn
something dead under the bed
local diplomats hang their heads
never mind what the government said
they're either lying or they've been misled
(chorus)
Phillipines was yesterday
Santiago and Greece today
how would they ever make
the late news pay
if they didn't have the CIA?
(chorus)
here it comes, the loaded gun
"must keep the commies on the run"
you'd buy or bury everyone
for liberty and life
and just plain fun
(chorus)
(From the album "In the Falling Dark") high speed drift on a prairie road hot tires sing like a string being bowed sudden town rears up then explodes fragments resolve into white line code whirl on silver wheels (chorus) black earth energy receptor fields undulate under a grey cloud shield we outrun a river colour brick red mud that cleaves apart hills soil rich as blood highway squeeze in construction steam stop caution hard hat yellow insect machines silver steel towers stalk rolling land toward distant stacks that shout "Feed on demand" 100 miles later the sky has changed urban anticipation -- we get 4 lanes redorange furnace sphere notches down throws up silhouette skyline in brown sundogs flare on windshield glass sudden swoop skyward iron horse overpass pass a man walking like the man in the moon walking like his head's full of irish fiddle tunes the skin around every city looks the same miles of flat neon spelling well-known names USED TRUCKS DIRTY DONUTS YOU YOU'RE THE ONE fat wheeled cars squeal into the sun radio speakers gargle top 40 trash muzak soundtrack to slow collapse planet engines pulsate in sidereal time if you listen close you can hear the whine
(From the album "In the Falling Dark") i'm gonna fly someday (repeat) if i keep ready and watch and pray i'm gonna fly someday.
(From the album "In the Falling Dark") vagabondage la danse du paysage et dans les nuages le decoupage d'un tour billon avec des naufrages vagabondage toujours en route nous sommes encore en route on joue du tambour on joue de la flute comme l'eau qui bondit d'une chute nous sommes en route et bientot dans le berceau un autre petit tzigane qui jouera du piano pour les chemineaux dans les bistros de la lune saut perilleux subitement il pleut de la lumiere partout et puis tout a coup nous sommes trois clowns fabuleux faisant des sauts perilleux nous cinglons dans le wagon d'un train qui grandit sans cesse comme l'univers: haute dans les airs une rose des veuts pointe vers des nouvelles plages. TRANSLATION: "Drifting" drifting the dance of the landscape and in the clouds the cutout of a whirlwind with shipwrecks drifting always on our way again we're on our way somebody plays the drum somebody plays the flute like water leaping from a waterfall we're on our way and soon in the cradle another little gypsy who will play the piano for the hobos in the bars on the moon somersault suddenly it's raining light all over the place and then all at once we're three improbable clowns doing somersaults we skim along in the coach of a train that's perpetually expanding like the universe: high in the air a compass-card points toward new shores.
(From the album "Circles In the Stream")
Got no social graces
never know my place
one thing i am sure of
you can't judge a man by his race
birth don't come easy
freedom doesn't come cheap
rules and worlds get swept away
while you waste your time in sleep
(refrain) Grow up you
grow up me
grown together
free to be.
There's music in the forest
children laugh in the school yard
on the skid row of the spirit
hear the ranting of the Western Guard
why don't you cool out
can it be so hard
to love yourself without thinking
someone else holds a lower card
(refrain)
Wired to the switchboard
always on the move
things we love to cling to
but there's nothing we can prove
you can only deal with
what's before your face
and the life you're given's no use at all
if you burn it up in hate
(refrain)
(From the album "Further Adventures Of") A laugh for the way my life has gone a laugh for the love of a friend a laugh for the fools in the eyes of the world the love that will never end Ha Ha Ha... Let's hear a laugh for the man of the world who thinks he can make things work tried to build the New Jerusalem and ended up with New York Ha Ha Ha... A laugh for the sun redballing through the thermal inversion haze a laugh for the nuclear good-time boys numbering all our days Ha Ha Ha... A laugh for the newsprint nightmare a world that never was where the questions are all "why" and the answers are all "because" Ha Ha Ha... A laugh for the dogs barking at our heels they don't know where we've been a laugh for the dirty window pane hiding the love within Ha Ha Ha... Tapping our feet to an ancient tune a laugh for the time gone by a laugh for me and Kitty in the delivery room waiting for the child's first cry Ha Ha Ha...
(From the album "Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws") Sun's up, uuh huh, looks okay the world survives into another day and i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. I had another dream about lions at the door they weren't half as frightening as they were before but i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. Walls windows trees, waves coming through you be in me and i'll be in you together in eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me Up among the firs where it smells so sweet or down in the valley where the river used to be i got my mind on eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake, thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take, pointing a finger at eternity i'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun, polished as precise like the brain behind the gun (should be!) they got me thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay One of these days we're going to sail away, going to sail into eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are...
(From the album "Humans") They're getting prepared to haul a car out of the river Noise and smoke and concrete seem to be going on forever Grinding gears and drivers getting high on exhaust i'm thinking about the water down below and what got lost Pachinko jingle and space torpedo beams Comic book violence and escaping steam Grey suited business men pissing against the wall -- Cut to crumbling guardrail, slow motions car fall Oh Tokyo -- I never can sleep in your arms Mind keeps on ringing like a fire alarm Me and all the other dice bouncing around in the cup Did you have to show me that accident scene Didn't I get enough shaking up? Still I'm gonna miss you... Dragon of good fortune struggles with trickster fox Energy and patience and the power of the buck Tonight I'm flying headlong to meet the dark red edge of dawn I know somebody will be crying and somebody will be gone Oh Tokyo -- (repeat chorus)
(Originally from the album "Humans") fascist architecture of my own design too long been keeping my love confined you tore me out of myself alive those fingers drawing out blood like sweat while the magnificent facades crumble and burn the billion facets of brilliant love the billion facets of freedom turning in the light bloody nose and burning eyes raised in laughter to the skies i've been in trouble but i'm ok been through the wringer but i'm ok walls are falling and i'm ok under the mercy and i'm ok gonna tell my old lady gonna tell my little girl there isn't anything in the world that can lock up my love again
(From the album "The Trouble With Normal") Strikes across the frontier and strikes for higher wage Planet lurches to the right as ideologies engage Suddenly it's repression, moratorium on rights What did they think the politics of panic would invite? Person in the street shrugs -- "Security comes first" But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse Callous men in business costume speak computerese Play pinball with the 3rd world trying to keep it on its knees Their single crop starvation plans put sugar in your tea And the local 3rd world's kept on reservations you don't see "It'll all go back to normal if we put our nation first" But the trouble with normal is it always gets worse Fashionable fascism dominates the scene When ends don't meet it's easier to justify the means Tenants get the dregs and landlords get the cream As the grinding devolution of the democratic dream Brings us men in gas masks dancing while the shells burst The trouble with normal is it always gets worse
(From the album "Humans") above the dark town after the sun's gone down 2 vapour trails cross the sky catching the day's last slow goodbye black skyline looks rich as velvet something is shining like gold but better rumours of glory smiles mixed with curses the crowd disperses about whom no details are known each one alone yet not alone behind the pain/fear etched on the faces something is shining like gold but better rumours of glory (repeat) you see the extremes of what humans can be? in that distance some tension's born energy surging like a storm you plunge your hand in and draw it back scorched beneath it's shining like gold but better rumours of glory
(From the album "Mummy Dust") I was up all night, socializing Trying to keep the latent depression from crystalizing Now the sun is lurking just behind the Scarborough horizon And you're not even here On the coldest night of the year. I took in Yonge Street at a glance Heard the punkers playing Watched the bikers dance Everybody wishing they could go to the south of France And you're not even here On the coldest night of the year. Hey look at me now See the shape I'm in It's taken me so long to catch on to what's going on Inside this skin When two lovers really love there's nothing there But this suddenly compact universe Skin and breath and hair I watched the all night TV show In the all night bar I drove all the people home I was the one with the car Now I'm sitting here alone and sleepless and wondering where you are And wishing you were here On the coldest night of the year.
(From the album "Inner City Front") neon flame on the window of an upstairs room helicopter beats across the face of the moon got a hunger that sprawls like this galaxy want to wrap my arms around you -- draw you right inside me i want to go walking with you Judy through the movie of the world no matter what i do i feel your presence everywhere i'll be just standing around and your scent comes at me out of nowhere i see your face on the wall -- in the magazine too next thing you know the billboard out my window will be you i want to go walking with you Judy through the movie of the world today was a dog licking crap in the gutter of the street tonight is a dancer oscillating on weightless feet so the fortune teller said you wouldn't end up with me last i heard only God gets to say what has to be i want to walking with you Judy through the movie of the world.
(From the album "Inner City Front") Woman cry -- chase man down street crying "No Chuckie, no, please don't" Another girl comes they run along St. Andrew, turn south on Kensington Meanwhile Chuckie beats it down the alley by the chicken packer's By the time I reach the corner they've all vanished Just a deaf kid talking like Popeye to a large fleshy laughing man in a blue shirt You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance Down the alley past the fire escape a woman is talking on the telephone Kitchen light spills out, laughter riding on its beam In the maze of moebius streets we're trying to amuse ourselves to death Under the deep sky that's squatting so close over us tonight You'd think it was trying to hatch us The numb and confused The battered and bruised The counters of cost And the star-crossed You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance Confused and solo in the spawning ground i watch the confusion of friends all numb with love Moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night-long conversations, of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices In spite of themselves, graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window Stay or leave, give or withold, hesitate or leap Each step splashing sparks of red pain in every direction And through it all, somehow, this willingness that asks no questions You pay your money and you take your chance When you're dealing with love and romance.
(From the album "The Trouble With Normal") Away from the river Away from the smoke of the burning Fearful survivors Subject of government directives One sad guitar note Echoes of the wall of the jungle Seen from the air they're just targets with nowhere to run to Children of rape Raised on malnutrition Men in camouflage Filled with a sense of mission Light through the wire mesh Plays on the president's pistol Like the gleam of a bead of sweat in the flow of a candle Hear the cry in the tropic night Should be the cry of love but it's a cry of fright Some people never see the light Till it shines through bullet holes The tropic moon Bathing a beach fringed with palms Glitters on shells And beach tar and coke cans And on the night-coloured boat And on the barrels of guns In the rage in the hearts of these men is the seed of a wind they call Kingdom Come Hear the cry...
(From the album "The Trouble With Normal") Sun climbs toward high noon, Glints metallic off the bowl of the spoon Sliding through the air toward parted lips Watch the expression when the straight taste hits Face crumples, tongue's quickly withdrawn I hate to tell you but the candy man's gone Oh sweet fantasia of the safe home Where nobody has to scrape for honey at the bottom of the comb Where every actor understands the scene And nobody ever means to be mean Catch it in a dream, catch it in a song Seek it on the street, you find the candy man's gone I hate to tell you but the candy man's gone In the bar, in the senate, in the alley, in the study Pimping dreams of riches for everybody "Something for nothing, new lamps for old And the streets will be platinum, never mind gold" Well, hey, pass it on Misplaced your faith and the candy man's gone I hate to tell you but the candy man's gone
(From the album "Stealing Fire") don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by you never get to stop and open your eyes one day you're waiting for the sky to fall the next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all when you're lovers in a dangerous time lovers in a dangerous time these fragile bodies of touch and taste this vibrant skin -- this hair like lace spirits open to the thrust of grace never a breath you can afford to waste when you're lovers in a dangerous time lovers in a dangerous time when you're lovers in a dangerous time sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime -- but nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight -- got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight when you're lovers in a dangerous time lovers in a dangerous time and we're lovers in a dangerous time lovers in a dangerous time
(From the album "Stealing Fire") here comes the helicopter -- second time today everybody scatters and hopes it goes away how many kids they've murdered only god can say if i had a rocket launcher...i'd make somebody pay. i don't believe in guarded borders and i don't believe in hate i don't believe in generals or their stinking torture states and when i talk with the survivors of things too sickening to relate if i had a rocket launcher...i would retaliate on the rio lacantun one hundred thousand wait to fall down from starvation -- or some less humane fate. cry for guatemala, with a corpse in every gate if i had a rocket launcher...i would not hesitate i want to raise every voice -- at least i've got to try. every time i think about it water rises to my eyes. situation desperate echoes of the victims cry if i had a rocket launcher...some sonofabitch would die
(From the album "Stealing Fire") step outside -- take a look at the stars catch a glimpse of the way things are -- making contact... smell of sweet fresh oil on skin when you move on me like the tide coming in -- making contact... so many ways to understand one for every woman and man been that way since the world began i hear the drumming of the surf and i have to dance stepping to the rhythm of circumstance -- making contact... i feel so huge -- i feel so small i feel so good i want to swallow it all -- making contact... making contact swimming in an ocean of love making contact swimming in an ocean of love we move together like the waves swimming in an ocean of love every night and every day swimming in an ocean of love one world -- one human race swimming in an ocean of love one kiss from a smiling face swimming in an ocean of love see that sign coming into view swimming in an ocean of love mother sea welcomes you swimming in an ocean of love making contact...
(From the album "Stealing Fire") crashing in the kitchen, noises in the hall roll over and go back to sleep -- it's just a dream, that's all so how come the window's broken? what caused the glass to fall? and who put that bullet hole in peggy's kitchen wall? police arrive -- muddy up the floor dig out half the plaster -- it's a .38 for sure kick the neighbour's door in, saying better tell it all who put that bullet hole in peggy's kitchen wall? blaster on the back porch shaking up the lane they're drinking gin and joking -- laughter falling down like rain everybody wears a halo -- never saw nothing at all so who put that bullet hole in peggy's kitchen wall
(From the album "World Of Wonders")
you've got covert action
prejudice to extremes
you've got primitive cunning
and high tech means
you've got eyes everywhere
but people see through you
you've got good manipulators
got your store of dupes
you've got the idiot clamour
of your lobby groups
you like to play on fears
but people see through you
you've got instant communication
instant data tabulation
you got the forces of occupation
but you don't get capitulation
cause people see through you
you've got the sounding brass
you've got the triumph of the will
you do what you want to
and we pay the bills
you hype the need for sacrifice
but people see through you
you've got anti-matter language
contrived to conceal
you've been lying so long
you don't know what's real
you're a figment of your own imagination
and people see through you
you've got lip service tributaries
you've got death fetish mercenaries
you hold the tickets to the cemetaries
you're BIG and BAD and SCARY
but people see through you
(From the album "World Of Wonders") padded with power here they come international loan sharks backed by the guns of market hungry military profiteers whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared with the blood of the poor who rob life of its quality who render rage a necessity by turning countries into labour camps modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom sinister cynical instrument who makes the gun into a sacrament -- the only response to the deification of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations' idolatry of ideology north south east west kill the best and buy the rest it's just spend a buck to make a buck you don't really give a flying fuck about the people in misery IMF dirty MF takes away everything it can get always making certain that there's one thing left keep them on the hook with insupportable debt see the paid-off local bottom feeders passing themselves off as leaders kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows open for business like a cheap bordello and they call it democracy and they call it democracy and they call it democracy and they call it democracy see the loaded eyes of the children too trying to make the best of it the way kids do one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast they call the revolution IMF dirty MF takes away everything it can get always making certain that there's one thing left keep them on the hook with insupportable debt
(From the album "World Of Wonders") rays of the moon make magic in the streets of the city all the people get strange but their faces look so pretty the walking graffiti; survivalist bums; even the secret police shout that you're the one see how i miss you every psychopath gets his own magazine these days i just read about how i can kill in a hundred ways but i don't want to cause anybody pain i only want to hold you in my arms again see how i miss you i watch this woman in a tight sequined lizard dress -- tosses her scarlet hair like a sly caress she got midnight voice like some beckoning saint she got something special but you she ain't see how i miss you
From Tierra del Fuego to Ungava Bay the history of betrayal continues to today the spirit of Almighty Voice, the ghost of Anna Mae call like thunder from the mountains -- you can hear them say it's a stolen land Apartheid in Arizona, slaughter in Brazil if bullets don't get good PR there's other ways to kill kidnap all the children, put 'em in a foreign system bring them up in no-man's land where no one really wants them it's a stolen land stolen land -- but it's all we've got stolen land -- and there's no going back stolen land -- and we'll never forget stolen land -- and we're not through yet In my mind I catch a picture -- big black raven in the sky looking at the ocean -- sail reflected in black eye -- sail as white as heroin, white like weathered bones -- rum and guns and smallpox gonna change the face of home in this stolen land... If you're like me you'd like to think we've learned from our mistakes enough to know we can't play god with others' lives at stake so now we've all discovered the world wasn't only made for whites what step are you gonna take to try and set things right in this stolen land stolen land -- but it's all we've got stolen land -- and there's no going back stolen land -- and we'll never forget stolen land -- and we're not through yet (Toronto, January 86)
Look at them working in the hot sun the pilloried saints and the fallen ones working and waiting for the night to come and waiting for a miracle Somewhere out there is a place that's cool where peace and balance are the rule working toward a future like some kind of mystic jewel and waiting for a miracle You rub your palm on the grimy pane in the hope that you can see You stand up proud you pretend you're strong in the hope that you can be like the ones who've cried like the ones who've died trying to set the angel in us free while they're waiting for a miracle Struggle for a dollar, scuffle for a dime step out from the past and try to hold the line so how come history takes such a long, long time When you're waiting for a miracle You rub your palm on the grimy pane... (Managua, January 86)