Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws - Bruce Cockburn (1979)
Finding new things, especially when you’re young, is often about what you hadn’t heard before. There’s nothing new under the sun, and when something sounds new to you it’s often because you hadn’t encountered what came before it.
To wit: the cerebral, jazzy folk of Bruce Cockburn would have been less radical to me if I’d known anything about the cerebral, jazzy folk of Joni Mitchell when I encountered him. But that’s not a knock on the guy.
Cockburn was a top-notch guitarist from the beginning, and his knack for blending smooth and sophisticated harmonies into his songs set him apart from the average three-chords-and-the-truth singer / songwriter set.
His lyrical abilities would evolve a lot over the years. Here we get an early version of Cockburn as a lyricist: highly poetic, idyllic, often highly abstract songs about the natural world (and sometimes the natural world as a metaphor).
In the 80s he’d develop into a songwriter of substance and message, championing the globally downtrodden. That thread of Cockburn isn’t here quite yet, but the brilliantly shiny melodies definitely are.
Tracks I Liked
Maybe it’s because I know what comes next, but After The Rain , Wondering Where The Lions Are , and Incandescent Blue are the centerpieces here. They’re both excellent songs that stand out on this album for having a little more substance. They’re also much closer to the identity he’d forge for himself over the ensuing years.
In fairness, there isn’t a song here that isn’t engaging and challenging in its own way.
Badlands Flashback (if you don’t mind lyrics in French) and Northern Lights (if you do) are great celebrations of natural grandeur.
The openers, Creation Dream and Hills Of Morning, are great examples of Cockburn integrating his reverence for the natural world intersecting with his examinations of the human condition.
