Homage to an Album

[themidnightgirl]

There's only really one test of an album - how long do you keep playing it for?

In 1996 I bought the then latest album by one of my favourite artists, Bruce Cockburn. Seven years later, I'm still regularly playing it.

"The Charity Of Night."

Track 1 - Night Train.

Not a knife-throw from here you can here the night train passing. That's the sound somebody makes when they're getting away.
The whole album is suffused with a noir atmosphere (unsurprisingly, as the theme of night threads throughout), and that atmosphere is set in the opening of the first song. With a drum beat pumping from start to finish, echoing the rhythm of the subject matter. The night train weaves through the song, the lyric straying to mulling philosophy - Everyone's an island edged with sand, a temporary refuge where somebody else can stand. before coming back to the train And the rhythm of the night train is a mantra.. The song ends with a brake-squealing guitar solo that stands on the edge of being dischordant, unsettling and nearly painful.

Track 2 - Get Up Jonah

I woke up thinking about turkish drummers. Didn't take long - I don't know much about turkish drummers.
A spoken, humourous piece starts this song, a reflection on a complex chain of humanity. As that ends, the song breaks into a more painful, almost desperate cry for the world - "And the high vault of heaven looks far away and cold.". Before ending with a plea - "Get up Jonah - it's your time to be born."
This longing, not for a saviour but for a prophet, is a theme of the whole album.

Track 3 - Pacing The Cage
Sometimes you feel like you've lived too long.
A song of weariness, of feeling that the world demands too much and of the desire to escape the cages that we build for ourselves - to just leave everything behind.
Sometimes the road leads through dark places, sometimes the darkness is your friend. Today these eyes scanned bleached-out land for the coming of the outbound stage - pacing the cage."

Track 4 - The Whole Night Sky
"Every place they touched me is a laceration now."
A fairly upbeat tune, with Bob Weir (Grateful Dead) on backing vocals and Bonnie Raitt on slide guitar, counterpoints a desperate lyric - a song of a man of faith who is questioning everything he believes.
"And look, see my tears, they fill the whole night sky."

Track 5 - The Coming Rains
"And in my heart I hold your photograph and the thought of you comes on like the feel of the coming rains."
The first of two songs about Mozambique, this is actually a love letter, sent home from the trip, with some tales of what he's been up to and what's going on. Gorgeously atmospheric and touching, it may be the best constructed song on the album.

Track 6 - Birmingham Shadows
"Birmingham, just behind the mountain."
Birmingham Alabama, obviously. A story of a meeting, on tour. Part spoken, part sung, this nine-minute opus is a tale of attraction, of the feeling of "in other circumstances." There was some mystery about who the other figure is, but "tattoo on chest like the key to your pumping heart", and circumstantial evidence eventually led to the belief and admission that is was Ani di Franco (who sings backing vocals on Get Up Jonah).
"If I fall down and die without saying goodbye, I give you this - you'll have lost a friend"

Track 7 - The Mines of Mozambique
If you're the child who finds it there you will rise up on the sound of the mines of Mozambique
The only overtly political song on the album, this is a searing and powerful description of the effect that abandoned landmines are having on Mozambique. At the same time, it manages to communicate the beauty and atmosphere of the country.
Night, like peace, is a state of suspension. Tomorrow the heat will rise and mist will hide the marshy fields, the mabgo and the cashew trees.

Track 8 - Live On My Mind
Light me like incense in the night, light me like a candle burning bright, light me like a searchlight in the sky, time means nothing when I look into your eyes.
After the seriousness of Track 7, this is almost like light relief. It's a simple love song, talking about a night on Maui. This is just...nice...
It's your eyes I want to see looking in to mine, I've got you live on my mind, all the time.

Track 9 - The Charity Of Night
Big City Europa - July of 64 - It's 5AM, weather blowing bitter over the Baltic.
Three stories, spoken, with a sung chorus. Atmospheric and mysterious, and it takes several listens to figure out how they are connected, or even what they are about. The chorus is a crescendo of hope rising from the dark verses.
Gentle bows and glasses raised to the charity of night

Track 10 - Strange Waters
I've seen a high caern kissed by holy wind, seen a mirror pool cut by golden fins, seen alleys where they hide the truth of cities, the mad whose blessing you must accept without pity.
Based loosely on one of the Psalms (23, I believe), this is Cockburn questioning his faith and his God from the darkness he sees. The song builds to a crescendo and ends on a note of hope, a very long way from the escapees of Night Train.
But where is my pastureland in these dark valleys? If I loose my grip, will I take flight?"

The whole album is a journey, through those dark valleys, through self doubt and weariness, through tragedy in Africa and strange occurrences in Europe, through a charged encounter in Alabama to a place of hope.

I adore this album completely, I love the dark tones, the "film noir in music", the lyrical complexity and meaning. I love the cover art...

It has a spirituality and faith about it that, whilst I can't share it, I can admire its generosity and its thoughtfulness - it isn't a blind belief, but one that has been tempered by questioning and by trial. Cockburn's voice, whilst not classically stunning, has such depth and feel that makes it consistently interesting. And his guitar work and the general musicianship on the album is beyond stunning.

If I was forced to throw away every album that I own, The Charity Of Night would be the one I had clutched in my hands, crying, after all the others are gone. I've been listening to it for seven years and I expect to be listening to it still in 2010.

"Everything is bullshit but the open hand."

Comments

[faerierhona.livejournal.com]

I've been playing "Speak and Spell" for 22 years, it is now in it's 4th or 5th incarnation as the old copies died!

[purpleheather.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they are fantastic songs. I remember how wonderful he was at the union chapel...