Mark's Notebook


	Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

In Quiet Protest

San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday 9 November 2005, 8:58 pm
Keywords: Christian Topics , News Articles

By Tom Lanham

For fans of this composer's typically vitriolic invective, a nonvocal set might come as a shock. As far back as 1984's Central America-themed "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," Canadian folk firebrand Bruce Cockburn has railed against social and political injustices, often visiting the foreign lands he sings about to more fully empathize with their problems. It's difficult for anyone to keep this Canuck quiet.

Within five minutes of discussing his new instrumental anthology "Speechless," Cockburn's muzzle unstraps, and his powder keg of leftist opinions explodes.

"I've seen reviews of my albums that say, 'Too much political bull -- . What does this guy know? He's just an artist.' Like somehow journalists are the only people who are qualified to write about politics."

Years ago, Cockburn growls, he was trying to warn listeners via songs like "Gospel of Bondage" about the encroachment of evangelical Christianity. "It was totally clear to me then, even though Pat Robertson had not yet said, 'Go out and kill that Venezuelan head of state because he's an annoyance.' But he had said equally ludicrous and equally un-Christian things over and over again, and people were still respecting him as this Christian leader."

Cockburn used to deem himself a devout Christian, too -- much of his earlier work is suffused with spirituality. He's no longer affiliated with any one church, he says, thanks to "my understanding of spirituality being added to that, a lot of things that didn't come from Christian sources."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/06/PKGTNFEMBQ1.DTL&type=mus
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