At Keswick, Bruce Cockburn's Quiet Passion

Philadelphia Inquirer
May 20, 1996

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"You may try to be apolitical in Guatemala, but the politics is liable to come around in the night with a machete and take pieces off your body," Bruce Cockburn says in a phone interview from his Toronto home. The songs of the 48-year-old folk/rock artist - appearing Tuesday at the Keswick with a four-man backing band - took a political turn after his trip to Latin America in the early 1980s. His popularity spread throughout the United States in 1983, with widespread airplay of his angry rant about Nicaragua, "If I Had a Rocket Launcher."

Cockburn's albums have become more personal since then, culminating with his recent Dart to the Heart (Columbia) - a collection of resonant meditations on a man's relationship with himself, his lover and his God. The tunes range from simple folk melodies to stubborn rockers.

"Some of those (politically aware) people are a little disappointed, perhaps, with the current album," Cockburn admits. "But the things people call political'... were very personal statements.

Cockburn is one of a few major-label artists who openly profess to be Christian, though his songs show only subtle evidence to his beliefs. "There's some good Christian artists around, who you don't have to know are Christians to appreciate what they are doing - Sam Phillips, (Midnight Oil's) Peter Garrett, Bono. I fell like I'm in some way part of that community, although it's not a self-conscious community. It doesn't want to be defined - at least I hope it doesn't."

Bruce Cockburn with Patty Larkin at the Keswick Theatre, Easton Road and Keswick Avenue, Glenside, at 8 p.m. Tuesday.