Bruce Cockburn Quotes & Sayings

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. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

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.' — Bruce Cockburn

I remember when the idea of living to be 40 seemed absurd. — Bruce Cockburn

And I'm wondering where the lions are. — Bruce Cockburn

When you know even for a moment
That it's your time
Then you can walk with the power
Of a thousand generations — Bruce Cockburn

Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall, The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

There's roads, and there's roads,
And they call. Can't you hear it?
Roads of the earth
And roads of the spirit

The best roads of all
Are the ones that aren't certain.
One of those is where you'll find me
'Til they drop the big curtain. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

Some people never see the light Till it shines thru bullet holes. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

Lord, spit on our eyes that we may see, how to wake up from this tragedy. — Bruce Cockburn

Everybody wants to see justice done, to somebody else. — Bruce Cockburn

Since the early '80s, I've found myself in war zones in various parts of the world. — Bruce Cockburn

There was a lot more music than the size of the place would indicate. — Bruce Cockburn

Got to kick at the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight — Bruce Cockburn

The trouble with normal is it only gets worse. — Bruce Cockburn

It's a phobia I have. I never assume I'm going to be able to write another album after I finish one. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

All these years of thinking, ending up like this: In front of all this beauty, understanding nothing. — Bruce Cockburn

In between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight, this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws. — Bruce Cockburn

'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. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — 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. — Bruce Cockburn

The second half of the '60s really was a kind of learning period, in terms of writing, for me. — Bruce Cockburn

If you don't keep learning and growing, you're going to stagnate. — Bruce Cockburn

Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe. — Bruce Cockburn

'Gifts' was just a short little one-verse song that I used to close shows in the '60s. — Bruce Cockburn

There are some decision-makers in the world whose version of sanity is a little different from what I consider the right one. — Bruce Cockburn

I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light
And I've formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more onto it
I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache
Under a loose board in the floor
And I blow across it and I send it to you
Against those moments when
The darkness blows under your door
Isn't that what friends are for? — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

I can't imagine my life any other way than it's been. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

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. — Bruce Cockburn

The invitation for artists to compete to see who can be the most charitable is a wonderful thing. — Bruce Cockburn

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse. — Bruce Cockburn