Catching Up With… Bruce Cockburn
During a career that stretches back to the late 1960s, Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn has explored introspective mysticism and political protest within a musical framework that encompasses everything from classic folk fingerpicking to a dizzying jazz/folk/rock hybrid. A dazzling guitarist and poetic lyricist, Cockburn is the recipient of numerous Juno Awards (the Canadian equivalent of a Grammy), and has experienced the dubious glories of Top 40 hits and MTV airplay. He’s yet to release an album that is anything less than beautifully played and lyrically challenging. These days he splits his time between Canada and the U.S. and dreams of Richard Nixon. Paste caught up with Cockburn, discussing the release of Small Source of Comfort, his 31st album.
Paste: The song that I suspect will elicit the most commentary on your new album Small Source of Comfort is “Call Me Rose,” where you envision Richard Nixon reincarnated as a poor single woman with two kids in the projects. Can you tell me what inspired that song?
Bruce Cockburn: Well, you’re probably not going to like the answer. Honestly, it came to me in a dream. I woke up and the song was just there, pretty much fully formed. That’s only happened to me once or twice in the past. The first verse—the one where Richard Nixon is reincarnated as a poor single woman with two kids—was definitely right there when I woke up. And I couldn’t even tell you precisely what inspired it. I think, at the time, there may have been an effort underway at the U.S. State Department to rehabilitate the image of Richard Nixon, so that may have been in the back of my mind. But who knows? It was a strange experience. Songs don’t usually come to me that way.
Paste: What’s prompted the emphasis on instrumentals over the past few albums? You’ve always incorporated instrumentals as part of your music, but it seems like the past few years, with Speechless, the all-instrumental album, and the five instrumentals that appear on Small Source of Comfort, that there’s been a greater focus. Is there anything behind that?
Cockburn: I don’t know. It’s probably too early to call it a trend. We’ll see what happens. I usually start with the words, and then build the songs from there. But there were a number of songs this time that just came out as instrumentals. And, as you say, I’ve always incorporated instrumentals in my albums. But there were just a few more of them this time that presented themselves that way. Playing with Jenny Scheinman might have had something to do with it. She’s a wonderful violinist, and several of those instrumentals emerged through those collaborations, just playing off of one another.
Paste: She’s great. Let me ask you a little more about Jenny. I wasn’t familiar with her work before this album, and I was really impressed. I know she’s worked with Bill Frisell in the past, and you’ve worked with Bill as well. Was he the connecting point for you?
Cockburn: Not directly. I think the first time we met was at a Mountain Stage concert. I was on the bill, and Jenny was playing with Rodney Crowell. So that’s the first time I saw her. The next time was in New York. I was dating a woman in Brooklyn, and we were passing by The Village Vanguard in Manhattan, and it turned out that Jenny’s name was on the marquee. So we listened again. And I really liked what she was doing. So just through that process—listening to this great jazz violinist, getting to know her a bit—we decided to collaborate on this album. She’ll be playing with me on this upcoming tour as well.
Paste: You’re known, for better or worse, as a very serious songwriter. Obviously, songs like “Call It Democracy” and “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” have contributed to that reputation. But on the new album you have a funny take on our busy lives (“Called Me Back”), and the line about the Nixon/Single Mom selling her memoirs in “Call Me Rose” made me laugh out loud. Is this a looser, more fun-loving Bruce Cockburn we’re seeing?
Cockburn: [laughs] Yeah, maybe. Maybe I got all that angry young man angst out of my system when I was an angry young man. But, you know, I’d like to think that I’ve always incorporated some humor in my music. Even some of the early albums from the ‘70s had songs like “The Blues Got the World by The Balls” and “Mama Just Wants to Barrelhouse.” So I don’t think it’s necessarily anything new. And honestly, a lot of the angry, political stuff has already been said. The players change, but it’s still the same world, you know. So maybe this time I decided to take a little more lighthearted look at the darkness. But it wasn’t anything conscious on my part.