Friday 8 May 2015

Bruce Cockburn [Dart To The Heart]

A disc which has slowly become a fairly regular staple in my player, and one which appeared twice before in my Blog [15th December 2010 & 25th August 2012], i can't exactly remember how i got into Bruce Cockburn, it might be that i bought this disc straight off cheap in a second hand shop, and i'm glad i did, tried some of his other stuff, but nothing else seems to really jive with me, Cockburn [pronounced Co-Burn] is a little hard to pinpoint as to his genre of music, some feel he's a Folk Singer, but i feel he's more Soft Rock.

Bruce Cockburn is Canadian, he's now 69, and this album came out in 1994, the front cover shows an Archer, which i take it is Cockburn himself [photography by Dana Tynan], a bleached yellow shot, nicely composed, lettering in dark blue and red, the front and back cover gives a real feel of the wilderness i guess, and of the heat of the sun.

The tracks i loved the most on this listen were 6 & 8, here's a synopsis of both,
6 Southland Of The Heart - Very acoustic, Cockburn plays acoustic guitar, there's pedal steel and organ too, and a background of brass [sax & trumpet], a really lazy number, you can feel the breezes wafting in and cooling you down on this number, best lyric = 'when the nightmares creeping closer, and your wheels are in the mud'.
8 Someone I Used To Love - Even more acoustic, if all the tracks were like this, then maybe yes i would call him a Folk Singer, it's a love song, and a gorgeous one at that, very endearing, it's in three verses, the first is gently acoustic, in the next two new instruments come in, certainly pedal steel, but there's also a mandolin in the background, and the accordion features highly too, it's the start of the second verse where the whole thing goes up a notch, and then there's an extended instrumental between the second and third verses, now that's Cockburn at his best, best lyric = 'you draw me in towards you, like the moon pulls at the tide'.