  |
 |
One of the more fascinating things about Bruce's lyrics are their interpretation. Rather than engage in lengthy debates on what Bruce intends to say in is lyrics, I thought I'd present a collection of quotations by Bruce regarding his lyrics. The quotes are supplemented with other sources that Bruce credits as being influential.
If you're in a state of grace you get a bed with your head up and the bad guys get their feet up. But it was a really marvelous thing. There's something about the isolation that, in a sense, for most of us, for most of the performers, that we kind of flit around a lot and don't have much of a solid contact with each other or with the people we're playing to. And in a situation like that, in a way its a bit like what you guys probably are experiencing here, but in a secular context, its missing that dimension. But, the sense of everybody being thrown together on their own in a way and cut off from everything else a kind of shipboard romance
develops- its avery nice feeling. That's sort of the main point behind this song."
- Bruce Cockburn, from the 1979 at the Luthern Student Movement Concert in Hastings Lake/Mulhurst, Canada
Gilles Binchois was born around 1400 and was one of the leading figures of the Burgundian School of Rennaisance Music. The night before the Massey Hall concerts in 1977 where "Circles In the Stream" was recorded, Bruce played at Hamilton Place. I was a music major at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It was the night before my final exam in music
history (Rennaisance Music history that is) and I was all studied out, so I decided to reward myself by going down to hear Bruce Cockburn. About half way throught the concert he starts talking about this "14th century composer" Gilles Binchois. I couldn't believe it! Here I was supposed to be home studying this relatively obscure musician and Bruce Cockburn of all people is playing one of his pieces! Immediately, I spotted the error by Bruce. So after the concert, I made my way back stage and met Bruce and corrected him on his music history. He was very nice to talk to and autographed my program with the words "To Mark. Thanks for the correction." I still have the program somewhere in my files. The next night, Bruce records his live album and lo and behold MY big moment on True North Records!
It gets better. 2 years later, Bruce is at Hamilton Place again. I went to see him. Great concert as usual, went backstage and before I could say a word, he says "I remember you from last time. You told me about the classical guitar piece." I couldn't believe that he would remember something like that but he did. We chatted for several minutes. The next year he plays Hamilton Place again and in the middle of the concert, asks the audience if I'm there. I wasn't, but some of my friends from University
were and did they ever give me the gears about not being there!
- Bruce Cockburn, Live Promotional Disc
- Bruce Cockburn, Live Promotional Disc
Following his performance in Indianapolis (June 19, 1997), Karen Derrick asked Bruce about the line "Left like a shadow on the step where a body was before." Bruce affirmed that he was thinking about what happened in Hiroshima in 1945 when the white hot bomb blast left people's shadow's imprinted on concrete.
- Bruce Cockburn, Live Promotional DiscBright Sky
"Here's a song from the Northwest Territories, excuse me, its from the Yukon. In the Yukon, there's a little town called Farrow which has been the site for many years of a folk festival- one of the best folk festivals around, strangely enough for a town of 1,200 or so, 200 miles from Whitehorse. People come from all over the north and all over northern B.C. to do this festival. Its put on by the mining company that owns the town. I presume as a tax dodge (laughter), but its okay by me -- they paid my way up there. Every year they do that. I'm not sure if its gonna continue. It's been really good anyway. I know they had one as recently as last year. The time I was there they had 70 of us that came up there. 70 performers, the hall held 700 people. That 10 to 1 ratio is pretty good (laughter). The town swelled considerably. The hotel filled up. The hotel in Farrow's known as the Tiltin' Hilton 'cause its built on the permafrost (laughter) and...since it was...the floors kinda go like this.Love Song
Here's an accounting of what led to the tale Bruce tells on the live Circles in the Stream album, regarding the song by Gilles Binchois. This came from the source, Mark Doble:Lovers in a Dangerous Time
Bruce says in an interview (on Rarities 5 or 6?) that he wrote the song in response to his feelings at seeing his
daughter and her lttle friend innocently holding hands in the school yard.Nicaragua
"'Tibetan Side of Town' was the product of notes written while I Kathmandu on a couple of different occasions. It wasn't exactly as it's stated in the song where all those things were noticed on one trip through town. But I was taking notes as I went, and those notes produced that song. The same is true of the song 'Nicaragua,' for that matter."Radium Rain
"'Radium Rain,' for instance, came out of my own experience of the aftermath of Chernobyl, in Germany. I'd arrived in Germany three days after Chernobyl happened. I had wrestled with myself to some degree before I left, thinking 'Oh, I don't know. I wonder about going to Europe at this moment.' But it seemed like it wouldn't matter where you were anyway, that stuff's gonna come down on you sooner or later so I might as well go and see what it looked like. And I did and it was very interesting experience and quite frightening in some respects and funny in others. The extremes that people went to. The extremes that governments went to to try to sort of suppress peoples' anxiety about the whole thing and it became ridiculous at a certain point, you know. At first they're saying, and I'm sure it was true of all the governments involved, they were saying 'Oh, there's no problem, you know, those stupid Russians just made a mistake, but we've got it together, don't worry about it.' And, you know, the next day they'd be saying 'Well there's a little bit of a problem, don't let you kids play in the dirt,' you know. And the next, the next day, or week later they'd be saying 'Well, you know, if you're a mechanic, you should avoid changing the air filters of cars, unless you're wearing protective clothing, and, you know, if you're a pedestrian, hold your breath when cars go by, 'cause of the
dust,' you know. And I mean it's absurd. How can you possibly not breath when the cars are going by on the street? And it just went from the horrific to the ridiculous."Salt, Sun and Time
"Sea travel, hanging out on the coasts of northern Europe. The title came from a phrase in Loren Eiseley's book, The Immense Journey (1957)."
- Bruce Cockburn, Ottawa Folklore Centre's Bruce Cockburn songbook All the DiamondsShipwrecked at the Stable Door
Yvon Malenfant reports that 'Shipwrecked...' "came from a story by Walter Wangerine or one of the writers Bruce lists in the 'Big Circumstance' credits. Yvon continues, "The story is about how in our modern day we would not want to enter the manger scene because of foul odors as well as the "commonness" of the scene. We want power, comfort and ease-thus we are shipwrecked at the stable door because of our lack of humility and not expecting to fine the divine in the simplest of settings."Sunrise on the Mississippi
At a performance at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, New York (17 August 1997), Bruce tells the audience he wrote the song in a dressing room before a show in St. Louis (24 April 1989).
Tibetan Side of Town
"'Tibetan Side of Town' was the product of notes written while I Kathmandu on a couple of different occasions. It wasn't exactly as it's stated in the song where all those things were noticed on one trip through town. But I was taking notes as I went, and those notes produced that song. The same is true of the song 'Nicaragua,' for that matter."