Bruce Cockburn Quotes
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'Gifts' was just a short little one-verse song that I used to close shows in the '60s.
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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.'
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All the diamonds in this worldThat mean anything to meAre conjured upby wind and sunlight sparkling on the seaI ran aground in a harbor townLost the taste for being freeThank God he sent some gull chased shipTo carry me to sea...
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There are some decision-makers in the world whose version of sanity is a little different from what I consider the right one.
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Since the early '80s, I've found myself in war zones in various parts of the world.
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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.
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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.
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A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea.
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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.
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I remember when the idea of living to be 40 seemed absurd.
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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.
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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.
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The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
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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.
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If you don't keep learning and growing, you're going to stagnate.
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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.
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These fragile bodies of touch and tasteThis vibrant skin, this hair like laceSpirits open to the thrust of graceNever a breath you can afford to waste, when you'reLovers in a dangerous timeLovers in a dangerous time...
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The second half of the '60s really was a kind of learning period, in terms of writing, for me.
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Catching the light and falling into dark And the world fades out like an overheard remark...In the falling dark
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I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.
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It's a phobia I have. I never assume I'm going to be able to write another album after I finish one.
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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.
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'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.
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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.