Bruce Cockburn
I like to think that if it hadn't gone as well as it has, if I wasn't able to make a living off of playing music, I would still be playing the music. But, of course, I wouldn't likely have had the opportunity to travel, and a lot of the places have inspired songs.Collection: Travel
I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.Collection: Poetry
I can't imagine my life any other way than it's been.
If you don't keep learning and growing, you're going to stagnate.
A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea. I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.
'Each One Lost' I wrote the day after I got home. My week in Afghanistan was a very short trip, but it was a powerful experience.
There are some decision-makers in the world whose version of sanity is a little different from what I consider the right one.
I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that's all. You sang other people's songs. That's all there were.
There was a lot more music than the size of the place would indicate.
All I ever thought was, 'I'm going to do this as long as I can, and if I can't get paid at it, I'll be a bum doing it.' And so, here I am.
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
I did a lot of writing for a lot of different kinds of bands that I was in and out of during those five years and that left me with a little body of songs that I liked better when I played alone, so I ended up going out solo and very soon made my first album.
If I try to understand what it means to be a Christian, I look at the two instructions that were given in the Bible that are paramount, and those are to love God with all your heart and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's it.
The second half of the '60s really was a kind of learning period, in terms of writing, for me.
I wear my shadows where they're harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I'm travelling toward light.
I woke up one morning with this song in my head, and the opening line of the song is, 'My name was Richard Nixon, only now I'm a girl.'
I remember when the idea of living to be 40 seemed absurd.
Since the early '80s, I've found myself in war zones in various parts of the world.
It sounds strange to say it, but you can be in a war zone and have a lot of fun. Even though war is essentially pain on all sides, human beings have the capacity to enjoy themselves. The soldiers are mostly young people, full of enthusiasm and energy, and that's an exciting thing for an old guy like me.
A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea.
I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.
'Gifts' was just a short little one-verse song that I used to close shows in the '60s.
It's a phobia I have. I never assume I'm going to be able to write another album after I finish one.
We're confronted with great darkness as a species right now as spiritual creatures on this planet. I don't think it's hopeless, and I don't want 'You've Never Seen Everything' to make people feel hopeless. But I think we've got to call a spade a spade.
But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight.Collection: Struggle
One day you're waiting for the sky to fall, The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.Collection: Fall
Little round planet in a big universe, sometimes it looks blessed, sometimes it looks cursed. Depends what you look at obviously, but even more it depends on the way that you see.Collection: Blessed
The trouble with normal is it only gets worse.Collection: Normal
And I'm wondering where the lions are.Collection: Animal
My models for graceful aging are guys like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stopped working till they dropped, as I fully expect to be doing, and just getting better as musicians and as human beings.Collection: Hurt
Lord, spit on our eyes that we may see, how to wake up from this tragedy.Collection: Eye
Everybody wants to see justice done, to somebody else.Collection: Justice
Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same.Collection: Gold
Resisting the powers that be, we are keeping things from getting worse than they otherwise might be. And that effort is very much worthwhile.Collection: Effort
Some people never see the light Till it shines thru bullet holes.Collection: Light
Wave the flag, wave the Bible, wave your sex or your business degree, whatever you want, just don't wave that thing at me.Collection: Sex
There is no gap between art and politics.Collection: Art
A number of Iraqis told us they had welcomed the U.S. forces as liberators initially but in the intervening months, they had come to feel that they had swapped one oppressive regime for another. The Iraqis did exchange one oppression for a lighter kind, in some ways.Collection: Numbers
All these years of thinking, ending up like this: In front of all this beauty, understanding nothing.Collection: Thinking
I watch the confusion of friends all numb with love moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night long conversations of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices in spite of themselves graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window.Collection: Friendship
Male female slave or free; peaceful or disorderly; maybe you and he will not agree; but you need him to show you new ways to see.Collection: Peaceful
Water of life is gonna flow again/changed from the blood of heroes and knaves/Word mercy's gonna have a new meaning/ when we are judged by the children of our slaves.Collection: Children
Gotta kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight.Collection: Darkness
The invitation for artists to compete to see who can be the most charitable is a wonderful thing.Collection: Artist
I woke up one morning with this song in my head, and the opening line of the song: My name was Richard Nixon, only now I'm a girl.Collection: Girl
Love the Lord and in him love me too. And in him, go your own way and I'll be right here with you.Collection: Religious
In between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight, this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws.Collection: Philosophy