Music itself isn't enough to completely wear down my stash of anger. And I don't have all that much more to be angry about than anyone else. It's not like I was abused as a kid or anything. I had a pretty comfortable childhood with parents who took good care of me. But resentment exists, and some of it goes into the music. Some of it goes into physical activity.

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

christian heart mean

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

Bruce Cockburn

fighting darkness struggle

Sometimes the best map will not guide you,

Bruce Cockburn

maps dark sometimes

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse, fashionable fascism dominates the scene.

Bruce Cockburn

normal scene trouble

When you know even for a moment

Bruce Cockburn

generations moments time

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

Bruce Cockburn

waiting sky fall

The trouble with normal is it only gets worse.

Bruce Cockburn

normal trouble

Going to places like Honduras, Nicaragua, and various African countries you get to see very clearly what the cause and effect is. We finance the obnoxious elites in those countries and they exploit their people so we don't have to say that we're doing the exploiting but nevertheless we are benefiting from it.

Bruce Cockburn

nicaragua country people

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

blessed littles looks

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

get-better guy hurt

There's roads, and there's roads,

Bruce Cockburn

earth spirit travel

There are so many people I love in the United States, and I've had such great adventures in this country and have been so well received by people here.

Bruce Cockburn

adventure country people

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

Bruce Cockburn

shining light people

Resisting the powers that be, we are keeping things from getting worse than they otherwise might be. And that effort is very much worthwhile.

Bruce Cockburn

worthwhile effort might

And I'm wondering where the lions are.

Bruce Cockburn

lions wonder animal

Sometimes I catch myself doing something that I've already done. The more I've done, the more that's likely to happen. Then I just throw it away. I wait until I've got the right way of getting a thing done, which means my songwriting proceeds at a very slow pace. But it's the only way I can really work.

Bruce Cockburn

pace waiting mean

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

Bruce Cockburn

chains gold

There's so many ways in which Canada and America are inextricably connected politically, economically, socially. There's no stepping away. But at the same time, we don't have a say. Canada is a different country. Sometimes I think of it as Finland in the Soviet era. We're totally free, but we're totally free to agree, basically. If we disagree too heartily or over too sensitive an issue, then we pay a price for that.

Bruce Cockburn

country america thinking

I've been accused of being a little pedantic here and there, but I don't buy that criticism. I'm telling it like I see it. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it at all. I'm not trying to convince people of things, other than the fact that I'm trying to make as vivid as I can my own feelings and experiences.

Bruce Cockburn

feelings trying people

The people who have impressed me most - and the closest I've come to having heroes - are the people who have devoted their lives to making things better for others. These are people whose names you never hear, people who work for Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and other humanitarian groups. They're just out there in the world, doing stuff.

Bruce Cockburn

doctors hero names