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In this haunting and deeply reflective episode, we explore the music of Bruce Cockburn—an artist who persistently challenges our indifference and urges us to reckon with the moral weight of being human. His songs are not just art; they are calls to awareness, rooted in compassion and fierce clarity.
We delve into the global injustices that course through his music: the devastation of climate change, and the brutal legacy of capitalism in the Global South, where lives are often sacrificed for profit. Later in the episode, Cockburn’s Postcards from Cambodia becomes a stark meditation on memory, violence, and the spiritual toll of silence.
The episode closes with a powerful capstone—an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s 1999 White House address—offering a final, unforgettable reflection on the dangers of indifference, and the sacred responsibility to bear witness. This is not an episode about despair. It’s about the quiet courage of paying attention.
America is going through some troubling times today. I don't need to remind anyone of that. But I do hope that this warning about the dangers of being 'indifferent' stirs - at minimum - a time of deeper reflection.
In This Episode
MUSIC
Bruce Cockburn
- Sunrise on the Mississippi
- Shining Mountain (live from Le Hibou, 1971)
- Call it Democracy
- Creation Dream
- False River
- Radium Rain
- Postcards From Cambodia
John Lennon: God
John Luther Adams: Become Ocean
SPOKEN
- Bruce Cockburn
- Douglas Cockburn
- Evan Hadfield/ Rare Earth
- Frontline Interviews with Fossil Fuel Industry Representatives
- Elie Wiesel
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Like some of the others that we're going to talk about, Well, I feel I haven't focused nearly enough on the great music that's come from Canada in this podcast series yet. Let's begin making amends with these coming episodes from Joni Mitchell. I'm now going to turn to another fabulously talented singer-son writer, Bruce Cockburn. Cockburn is a songwriter who's long career, 35 albums over 54 years, starting in 1970 with his self titled album. He demonstrates an artist committed to opening up the width of human experience, to the spiritual in the midst of a corrupted world. His music gives voice to the human longing for a homecoming. His themes include love, war, politics, the environment, the search for and experience of God in the midst of a deeply troubled world. He is a world citizen, a student, and a lover of human cultures in all of their varieties. He’s also a respectful lover of literature and poetry. A little like another artist that will look at in a future episode Warren Zevon. A lot of his metaphors were taken from the Bible. Cockburn’s early musical influence was jazz, and his parents encouraged him to study piano. Canadian jazz musician Oscar Peterson was an early inspiration. About his parents, Cockburn has said, they thought that if I learned to play properly, I wouldn't want to play that awful rock and roll. And strangely, it was sort of true. Here's Bruce's father to tell us about those formative views.
He was quiet. He was in a way like a little adult. When Bruce wanted to first take guitar lessons, I wasn't too keen on it because all I could see in my mind was Elvis, gyrating in the stage, and with his longish hair and sideburns and sort of a sultry, greasy look. Bruce started out playing trumpet and clarinet in the school band. And then one day he discovered a guitar in his grandmother’s closet.
And I got it out and I painted gold stars on the top of it and I started banging on it.
At 17, Bruce enrolled in the Royal Conservatory in Ottawa. And he took course of study that led to him writing a jazz mass. This is a really famous school with a pedigree of having produced many world-class musicians. Some of these include Diana Krawl, Oscar Peterson, Gordon Lightfoot, Sarah McLaughlin and Nelly Furtado. While there, Cockburn was already dabbling in folk music. It was the early 1960s when the folk Renaissance was in full swing. Hanging around the local group of folkies, he learned to play ragtime in country and blues. And since he was playing guitar by then, studying finger-picking techniques of guitarists like Big Bill Broonze, , Mississippi John Hurt, and Brownie McGee. Cockburn started out playing at local open mics. One of these was at a place called Le Hibou.
This was Ottawa's premiere folk venue. Dylan's Highway 61 revisited had just been released. The Beatles were the biggest band in the world. The folk scene was happening. It was a musical Renaissance open to anyone who'd listen. From 1971, here's Bruce, playing at this fabled coffee shop,
watching Hendrix perform. He had a brief epiphany and he realized that there wasn't any real meaning in it. Not as he saw it. It was a gazing contest, the audience on one side, the rock star on the other, and all of it kind of empty. After the gig, Hendrix invited the Flying Circus to a jam session and Cockburn bowed out. Not exactly what you'd expect. Hendrix and the Cream were famous, widely regarded. It could have been a career building kind of a night for him, but Bruce, instead, decided to check out. He's never wanted fame for fame's sake.
Chihuahartists sell them paint or rye or compose, circled for fame. For any of the writers that I'm exploring in this series on this singer songwriters, it's about the desire to share their hearts and the minds with like-minded people, people like you guys. The mid to late 20th century was dominated by capitalism and the Cold War and between these two opposing forces a lot of blood was shed. The ricochet sound of this conflict was echoed by many musicians in the singer songwriter camp. Only a few were skillful enough to capture the aggression and despair as eloquently as Bruce Cockburn.
In the mid 1980s, Cockburn traveled to war torn Guatemala. He witnessed poor Guatemalans being terrorized by their own government. Let's let Bruce describe the naked aggression of unbridled capitalism with his song They Call it Democracy from his album fascist architecture.
His opening lines set us up well. Padded with power here they come, international loan sharks backed by the guns of market hungry profiteers whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared with the blood of the poor.
I felt that art and politics had no business under the same roof really that somehow art should be maintained should be kept circumspect and it wasn't until I went to Central America really that I started to rethink that position and to recognize that politics kind of comes your way whether you ignore it or not.
Cockburn sees through what passes as democracy and development and he identifies the world's acceptance of the status quo.
This is not simply the way things are he's telling us. This is a man circumstance. We don't have to simply accept this.
For a long time there's been a huge gap between the America that most Americans were taught about school and the America that some people around the world have experienced. As an American, I love my country but that's like saying “love the sinner, hate the sin. The story of United Fruit in Central America is just one version.
In other songs he tells us what this mindless chasing after gold is costing humanity. In the song You've Never Seen Everything, he explains to us that the market has no brain it doesn't love it's not God. All it knows is the price of lunch. Here I sit staring at my own shadow feeling my blood trying not to have a drink trying to find somewhere to put the rage I'm carrying
And what of God? What can Bruce Cockburn tell us about God?
At a certain point it became obvious that I needed to start calling myself a Christian if I was going to be honest with people. And so I did.
He confirms that God is the creator of everything. In his song, Creation Dream, he paints it out in broad colors of poetry and rhythm and this song is a prayer to the Divine Creator. And as we listen in we hear him pray
You were dancing I saw you dancing throwing your arms toward the sky fingers open like flares stars were shooting everywhere lines of power bursting outward along the channels of your song mercury waves flashed under your feet shots of silver in the shell pink dawn. And in his song, Lord of the Starfields, Cockburn wrote, Lord of the Starfields, Sorrow of life, Heaven and Earth are full of your light, Voice of the Nova, Smile of the Dew, All of our yearning only comes home to you, O love that fires the sun, Keep me burning. The universe maker, Here's a song in your praise, Wings of the storm cloud, Beginning and end, You make my heart beat, Like a banner in the wind. O love that fires the sun, Keep me burning.
Within the context of his deep spirituality, Coburn confronts the evil of our age, This human greed that's spoiling the last vestiges of the good and beautiful Earth that God created.
Rainforest, Myths and mystery, Teaming Green, Green Rain facing lobotomy, Climate control center for the world, Ancient core to coexistence hacked by parasitic greed-head scam. From Sarawak to Amazonus, Costa Rica to mangy BC Hills, Cortez rhythm of falling timber. What kind of currency grows in these new deserts? These brand new floodplains? If a tree falls in the forest, Does anybody here?
This song, if a tree falls in the forest, from 1988, It’s about as plain as you can bear to face. Cut and move on, cut and move on, Take out trees, Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day. Take out people who've lived with this for 100,000 years, Inject a billion burgers worth of beef, Grain eaters, Methane dispensers. This is a world in economic, social, political and environmental crisis. Anyone with a heart, and an ounce of sensitivity would have to with him. Ultimately, this is a spiritual crisis. Nothing else can explain the return of a Donald Trump to the world stage, Not after all we've learned about him in the last eight years. How else can you define our species’ utter contempt and refusal to make an all out attempt to arrest the climate disaster? Or for that matter, allowing the tiniest fraction of everyone who's ever lived to put us in this situation in the first place? For the next little while, I'm going to ask you to turn your attention to the fossil-fuel industry And the Global Climate Coalition. See how the interests of a few corporations were more important than the long-term welfare of our planet and the future of everyone who will ever follow this very select group of corporate leaders and their desire to make their annual bonuses.
