Octo_Russ

Bruce Cockburn [Dart To The Heart] 

Another lovely atmospheric disc, Bruce Cockburn [pronounced Co-Burn] certainly isn't consistent, he goes all over the place in quality, some of his albums are very 'environmental', others are anti-war, he's political like Jackson Browne at times, but when you get away from all of that, and get into an album which has just great songs, then you can see his brilliance, this is the very best album i've heard from him, it's quite a gem in my library, i played this at the end of 2010 [15th December 2010]. 

Bruce Cockburn is Canadian, he's now 67 years old, he has 24 studio albums, and live / compilation albums make up another dozen, so a very well recorded Artist, though i've always wanted to get deeper into his catalogue, i've been 'scared off' by trying a couple of other albums that haven't worked out, is he another one of my 'one album Artists'?, he recorded this disc in 1994, i like the photography throughout [by Dana Tynan], on the front showing a yellowed out picture of an Archer [Cockburn i take it], just the two hands really, showing the bow / arrow, and the hands gripping, a nice concept.

Well the tracks that i found the best were 4, 6 & 8-9, with track 8 'Someone I Used To Love' the cream of the crop, the title suggests it's about a past love, but actually he's singing about a present love that he doesn't want be someone he used to love, it's a gentle acoustic guitar song, the lovely guitar picking intro sets the tone [0:00-0:11], the start of the first verse is just Cockburn's voice and his guitar [0:11-0:57], with a slight smattering of gentle organ played by T Bone Burnett, the second verse opens up to the band, but it's still very acoustic, i especially like the mandolin [Colin Linden] and the accordion [Richard Bell], a wonderful use of instruments, between the second and third verses there's an extended instrumental interlude, Cockburn first, then Bell second [1:45-2:30], i like the lyrics in the last verse 'You draw me in towards you, like the moon pulls at the tide' [2:42-2:53], the whole song sounds like a perspective from old age looking back [think Fernando by ABBA here], there's a certain sense of deep nostalgia, even maybe regret, it's a very touching song. 

Here's a cover version of 'Someone I Used To Love' being sung on YouTube, Jimmy Buffett also did a cover version of it as a duet with Nancy Griffith, also on YouTube, i'll have to check out his album.