Bruce Cockburn Fans
cary iliff
a bunch of great songs on it, including "Radium Rain." "Gospel of
Bondage" is not to be missed either.
I thought his recent album, "Life Short, Call Now" was great, despite
some of the negative reviews. Julie Wolf, Cockburn's keyboardist, is
unbelievably good. If you get the chance to see them in live, take it.
They are not too be missed.
Mark T
> "Big Circumstance" is one of my favorite Bruce Cockburn albums. It has
> a bunch of great songs on it, including "Radium Rain." "Gospel of
> Bondage" is not to be missed either.
>
> I thought his recent album, "Life Short, Call Now" was great
Me too.
> despite some of the negative reviews. Julie Wolf, Cockburn's keyboardist,
> is
> unbelievably good. If you get the chance to see them in live, take it.
> They are not too be missed.
I've collected all Cockburn's albums that I can get my hands on in
Australia. I'd like him to tour here. Australia is good enough for the
likes of U2, CS&N, Eric Clapton, etc why not Bruice??? (U2 are also all
Christians - Adam Clayton is now one of the fold.)
This is not your usual Jesus Jingle that is found only in your Bible & Trew
Kristyun Kitsch Bookstore but good music by a Christian. "The Gospel of
Bondage" has much to say about the current Fundamentalist Dark Age.
Other Christian artists worthy of a listen include: U2, Bob Dylan, Johnny
Cash, Midnight Oil (Aussie) ... et moi (see link at end)!
Boycott Jesus Jingles, Trew Kristyun Kitsch and God Ads.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Gospel Of Bondage --
22 February 1987. Toronto, Canada.
Tabloids, bellowing raw delight
Hail the return of the Teutonic Knights
Inbred for purity and spoiling for a fight,
Another little puppet of the New Right
See-through dollars and mystery plagues
Varied detritus of Aquarian Age
Shutters on storefronts and shutters in the mind -
We kill ourselves to keep ourselves safe from crime.
That's the gospel of bondage...
We're so afraid of disorder we make it into a god
We can only placate with state security laws
Whose church consists of secret courts and wiretaps and shocks
Whose priests hold smoking guns, and whose sign is the double cross
But God must be on the side of the side that's right
And not the right that justifies itself in terms of might -
Least of all a bunch of neo-nazis running hooded through the night
Which may be why He's so consipicuously out of sight
Of the gospel of bondage...
You read the Bible in your special ways
You're fond of quoting certain things it says -
Mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above
But when do we hear about forgiveness and love?
Sometimes you can hear the Spirit whispering to you,
But if God stays silent, what else can you do
Except listen to the silence? if you ever did you'd surely see
That God won't be reduced to an ideology
Such as the gospel of bondage...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Known comments by Bruce Cockburn about this song, by date:
a.. 27 February 1988
INTO THE home stretch of his recent two-hour solo concert on the U.C.
Berkeley campus, Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn flipped off the
religious right, a movement that distresses him as both a Christian and a
progressive. Introducing a brand-new song called "Gospel of Bondage," he
called Pat Robertson a "grinning skull" and said of the candidate's
reactionary evangelist brethren, "They scare the hell out of me and also
irritate me, because i've gotten tired of saying, 'Yes I'm a Christian but
I'm not one of them.' So here's my way of saying fuck you' to them."
Cockburn doesn't mince words. In a phone conversation from his Toronto home
a few weeks before the show he called Robertson and his ilk "scum-bags"...
- from "Pop Proselytizing: Bruce Cockburn. At Zellerbach Hall, U.C. at
Berkeley, Friday, Feb. 27th.", by Derk Richardson, The San Francisco Bay
Guardian, 9 March 1988. Submitted by Bobbi Wisby.
a.. 18 March 1988
"Some of them got a little nervous when I started talking about politics,"
he adds, "because you're not supposed to do that if you're a certain type of
Christian -- especially if you're a songwriter. I got a lot of letters from
people, especially after the album 'Stealing Fire,' and there were a lot of
people in the Christian scene who found 'If I had a Rocket Launcher' very
difficult. Because they weren't used to thinking about those things."
"There were a lot of Christians who did understand it, the more liberal, for
want of a better word, turn of mind," he points out. Nonetheless, "A lot of
people wrote letters urging me, exhorting me, not to lose the way. At no
point was I threatened with excommunication, but there was definitely a kind
of standing back and going, 'What is this?' on the part of a lot of people."
[Cockburn may upset even more listeners with one of his new songs.] "Gospel
of Bondage," which, he says, is "addressed to the so-called Christian right
in America." But he doesn't worry. "I am a Christian songwriter," he says.
"I just don't fit the Christian music scene."
- from "The Social Commentaries of Bruce Cockburn" by J.D. Considine, Sun
Pop Music Critic, Baltimore Sun, 18 March 1988. Submitted by Nigel Parry.
a.. 12 January 1992:
"To me, the message of Christ is so evidently love and freedom, I just don't
understand how anyone can read into the message and get anything but that,"
he says. " And it . . . [angers] me . . . when I see people hustling that
other kind of knee-jerk belief -- all rules and conformity and
non-freedom -- exemplified by some of the TV evangelists and David Dukes of
the world, spouting off this stuff that they claim is Christianity. I hate
the idea that people might actually think this is what it's all about. Their
message is so anti-love."
- from "A Rising Northern Star: Canadian Bruce Cockburn Wins More U.S.
Converts" by Brad Buchholz, Dallas Morning News, 12 January 1992. Submitted
by Nigel Parry.
from http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/gob.html
--
My Blog - - my thoughts on Christianity/ song covers & pics & links
http://www.blognow.com.au/strooth/
My Soundclick Page - download my original songs in mp3 format
http://www.soundclick.com/marktindall
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
from http://www.soundclick.com/bands/Lyrics.cfm?BandID=431516&songid=3072918
About "Your Jesus Jingles Make Me Puke":
I am a Christian - an "Exiled Believer".
Fundamentalist Christians have banned my music repeatedly. This is my answer
to their Trew Kristyun Kitsch which doesn't understand the difference
between praise / worship / propaganda and ART! I'm interested in art not
Trew Kristyun Jesus Jingle kitsch propaganda.
Michelangelo would be banned in the current Fundamentalist Dark Age.
*****************************
To return to the Last Judgement: Michelangelo had already finished more
than three~fourths of the work when Pope Paul went to see it. On this
occasion Biagio da Cesena, the master of ceremonies and a very high-minded
person, happened to be with the Pope in the chapel and was asked what he
thought of the painting. He answered that it was most disgraceful that in so
sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures,
exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal
chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns. Angered by this comment,
Michelangelo determined he would have his revenge; and as soon as Biagio had
left he drew his portrait frorn memory in the figure of Minos, shown with a
great serpent curled around his legs, among a heap of devils in hell; nor
for all his pleading with the Pope and Michelangelo could Biagio have the
figure removed, and it was left, to record the incident, as it is today.
*******************************
What past leaders would meet our standards of piety? Luther? We would find
him vulgar. Shakespeare? Filthy. Bach? Secular. Verdi? Catholic. Joan of
Arc? Insane. Winston Churchill? A drunken warmonger. George Washington? A
reactionary chauvinist. Jesus of Nazareth? Rude, sexist, offensive, and
inscrutable. All of these would be too compolicated, too real, too human for
the "nice", the timid, the shallow, the ignorant - the church. p.2
Christ deeply offended the Phasrisees, and if we are to live as good artists
and good Christians, we will offend their modern descendants as well. ...
Unlike the simplistic rules of fundamentalism, the true Christian life is a
balancing high-wire act. p. 49
Censorship, the twin brother of propaganda, is the tool of despots, of
idealogues, of ayatollahs, of fantics. p.96
The first freedom is the freedom to be normal. The follower of the Truth
need not be a guilt-ridden weirdo, part of some small, seperated band of
desperate Christian flagellants seeking personal holiness and spirituality
by abandoning life. p133
The follower of Truth is free to apply one standard to all things, to all
reality: that is, to simply ask, "Is it true?" "Is it false?" "Is it good?"
:"Is it bad?" "Does it work?" "Is it excellent?" "Is it mediocre?" ... The
follower of Truth need not be a strange, mystic oddity. He is a
flesh-and-blood person - a real person who may curse when he hits his thumb
while adding an extension to his kitchen, but does not blaspheme by
saying"Praise the Lord," unless he means it. pp.134-135
from Franky Schaeffer "Sham Pearls For Real Swine" ( Wolgemuth & Hyatt;
Brentwood:1990) [Francis Schaeffer's son]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Your Jesus Jingles Make Me Puke"
(Mark Tindall)
Chorus
Your Jesus Jingles make me puke / I'm sick of hearing crap
Your Jesus Jingles make me puke / Shut your bloody trap
Hallelujah please the hordes Bless the Lord One Way
Glory to God you speak in tongues and speak in trite cliches
You mention Jesus fifty times in every silly song
Christianese reigns, you win the Golden Gong
You're feeling edified by hearing Kristyun Kitsch
Propaganda scratches the Rabid Fundy Itch
You think I'm a pagan stepping on your toes
I don't like waffly goo nor your Pharisee Show
You play rock songs backwards, no wonder they sound bad
You're obsessed with hidden messages and your conspiracy fads
You'll ban this song just like the rest, you'll crucify me yet
Drag me before the Sanhedrin and crawling things you've met
Bloody hell! I'm so bloody bored, so bored bored bored bored
You lunatic antics have even bored the Lord
Your Jesus Jingle crap is so utterly inane
Your Jesus Jingle crap is fecking up my brain
Middle (simultaneously)
Hallelujah!
Hell-lay-loo-yar!
Have a rhubarb!
(和ark Tindall)
Gladys
>
> I've collected all Cockburn's albums that I can get my hands on in
> Australia. I'd like him to tour here. Australia is good enough for the
> likes of U2, CS&N, Eric Clapton, etc why not Bruice??? (U2 are also all
> Christians - Adam Clayton is now one of the fold.)
Cockburn has toured Australia quite a few times.
Cockburn is a Christian, but is quick to separate himself from the
current ultra right-wing Christianity trend. Gospel of Bondage is one
example of many tunes that he has penned that would piss of the current
mainstream Christian in America. Good for him. :-)
Gladys.