Customer Reviews

The Charity of Night

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I thought I'd stop by and read a few reviews of one of the most remarkable documents/CDs I have ever listened to, and I find comments about Bruce Cockburn's musicianship (no debate there) and mixed reactions to the song's contents.Listen again, intently. "The Charity of Night" is intense and ambitious. It's got vivid pictures of far-off places and uncertain times. It tells stories. It captures pain, regret, doubt, loneliness, fear ... and hope, lust, redemption, humor, compassion. This guy is so loaded with emotion and passion and sincerity and integrity and dedication to detail that no wonder sometimes "there's a pounding in my head, I'm swollen up with unshed tears." Thank God he's got his guitar and the songs come out of him. Listen again, intently, ride along, and feel, feel and see.

Bruce is from Ottawa, although a major part of the early days and his management company are focused on Toronto. Celtic-Islamic? What?!!?
Cockburn's guitar sryle is blues-jazz based with a strong roots element to it, but I've never thought of him as Celtic, and certainly where Islamic came from, Allah only knows. Can he please be called quintessentially Canadian, which should mystify the great labelizers of the music world enough to give Cockburn the room he needs to create extraordinary music.
Those quibbles aside, this is rightly one of BC's absolute gems, particularly this far into his career. There is a wild range of emotions running through these songs, and Bruce's fretwork (I still can't believe celtic-islamic) is dazzling, Allah and Ossian be praised. The chugging train rhythm of the opening track sets an authentic roots tone to a deeply personal statement, and back up vocals from Jonatha Brooke and Ani De Franco give this CD an urgency.
"Pacing the Cage," written in the dismal environs of Philadelphia, is as dire an assessment of fate as I have ever heard. It absolutely breaks your heart. "Coming Rains" rejoycefully rebounds the spirit, and "Birmingham Shadows" is one of those brilliant Cockburn epics, part poem, part lyric that hint at a love, perhaps illicit, at least dangerous, yet determined to flourish and become consummated regardless of the potential for oppression. "Mines of Mozambique" returns Cockburn to the political arena. Throughout these 9 songs, Cockburn presents intoxicating landscapes and passionate human dramas. He is far and away one of the very greatest of North American writers and a crafter of melodies that live with the listener a very, very long time.
Cockburn is his own man, certainly an exitentialist and christian kind of hero, and as he addresses his topics, he very willingly breaks the bonds that any label might impose upon him. You would be better served taking the man on his own merits. These merits are extraordinary. This is one of his very best collections.

Several of Bruce's previous efforts have fallen flat, but this CD brings him back to the forefront. The songs are well crafted, and the production is excellent. The instrumentation is fabulous. The guitar/vibrophone duet on "Mistress of Storms" is such a good blend of sound, I often replay this track two or three times in a row. The sparcity of the playing on "Pacing the Cage" helps to accentuate the lyrics. Overall, the tracks are very rich and buttery. You won't regret picking this CD up.

23 albums down the road, and Cockburn pulls out "The Charity of Night". Most singer-songwriters go downhill as they get older, Cockburn - like the water into wine story - is unarguably turning out to have saved the best for last.

"Charity" offers an even mix of love, political, human condition, and instrumental songs, four songwriting genres that Cockburn excels in. From the first track to the last on "Charity", there are no duds, and the album as a whole is conceptual, opening up the idea of Night as sanctuary, challenging us to consider the space between dusk and dawn in a different light, rather than merely dismissing it as 'just darkness.'

The album is rock/folk (in that order), but the profound jazz influences, the moody talking story songs, the excellent instrumentalists and backing singers (Ani DiFranco, Jonatha Brooke, Patty Larkin, Bob Weir, etc.) make this a musically deeper album than others in the same genre.

"Charity" gradually builds via a series of steady ebbs and flows to the last song, a masterpiece called "Strange Waters", which rumbles like musical thunder into eternity.

Fans of classic Cockburn will be delighted.

People who have never heard of Cockburn, who stumble onto this album looking for the two-bladed sword of quality music delivering lyrics that actually say something about something, will be relieved to have finally made his acquaintance.

This is one of the best albums I own. Sure, I'm a Cockburn fan, but I like a lot of other good musicians too, and this is as good as he gets.

According to a poll of hardcore Bruce Cockburn fans in Spring 1999, this album was no.1 of the 24 that had been released by that point.

On the ongoing poll since then, of visitors to The Cockburn Project website, this album has consistently stayed at number one of the 25 released by that point.

Never heard Cockburn before? This is the album to start with. Then head for Breakfast In New Orleans, Dinner In Timbuktu, the 'sequel' to "Charity."

This is the best Cockburn album out there. If you like Bruce, you have to get this one. If you have never heard Bruce, like myself not long ago, you should definately take a chance on this one. At first, I didn't care for it at all, but after giving it a chance, his talent is amazing. He paints such a vivid picture of the places in his songs, your mind is there. Music is great because each song makes you feel a different way.. and his songs; especially this album; gives you the most vivid moods and feelings of any music I've ever heard. 10 out of 10 without a moment's hesitation!

Although you can't judge a CD by its cover art, the cover art of Bruce Cockburn's _The Charity of Night_ actually says a good bit about its contents. The album, like its cover, is layered and complex, containing scattered, multi-faceted shards of beauty. The angel on the cover holding a gun reflect's Cockburn's own marriage of spirituality to politics, while the moon/yin-yang in the background illumines the night, the stars being something like a trace that dances across the sky, recoiling back into the night.

Cockburn is a rare breed among artists. His command of the English language is, quite literally, stunning; I know of no lyricist who ascends anywhere close to Cockburn's eloquent prose:

"Ice cube in a dark drink shines like starlight
Starlight shines like glass shards in dark hair
The mind's eye tumbles out along the steel track,
fixing every shadow with its stare

Night train..."

This poetic depth, however, is by no means divorced from existential weight, spiritual wrestling or the voice of clear, moral vision. They all blend seamlessly in Cockburn.

He is an equally gifted guitarist, able to oscillate with perfect balance between the tender ("Live on My Mind"), the contemplative ("Pacing the Cage"), and the spiritually bristling ("Night Train" and "Strange Waters", the latter of which works off of the lyrics of Psalm 23 but inverts the lyrics in a rather haunting way). The lyrics and music mesh perfectly - a tribute not only to Cockburn's creativity, but to his time-honed *song*-writing skills as well.

This album was the first album I ever bought by Cockburn, and although I have been a fan ever since, this album remains my favorite by far. It bristles with a raw, human energy all its own. For those willing to dig a more deeply into themselves while listening to another who already has (and is), "The Charity of Night" will not only take you outside of yourself, but will also open up new vistas to the soul. I could not recommend it more highly.

I'd listened to Cockburn's music on and off over the years and appreciated his extraordinary talent but for what it's worth, hadn't found the songs to be all that compelling. I managed to borrow a copy of "Nothing but a burning light" in the early 90's and it changed the way I perceived his music. When I finally got to hear the "Charity of Night" it left an immediate and powerful impression, like a gripping novel I simply couldn't put down. I believe it's his best album so far, and one of the best albums I've ever heard. There's a deep sense of longing running through the songs which is something not easily counterfeited. Cockburn's sense of humanity and his spiritual perspective might explain, in part what makes these songs so affecting. This is expressed through his impassioned plea for the poor and oppressed in songs like The Mines of Mozambique or, The coming Rains. His political songs appear to be less didacticism rather journalism based on personal experience and impassioned by the disparity and injustice witnessed during his travels. It isn't done in a self-righteous way as he also acknowledges his own failings ("who me?" in the Coming Rains) His detractors may seek to reduce him to a left-wing ideologue but I can appreciate his [at times] aggressive tone because there are things, upsetting as they might be that need to be shouted from the rooftops. Cockburn also writes profoundly personal and reflective songs. These hint at the struggles of being, not only concerning survival but also of that innate desire to be better than we are, or perhaps feel that we ought to be. There's no absolution with Cockburn, but there is hope. I haven't said much about the music itself but as plenty of other reviewers have done that quite admirably and better than I could manage, I'll leave it alone. Cockburn is a supremely gifted and talented artist and this is an astonishingly good album. I highly recommend it.

This is a tour de force. Although I love almost all of Bruce Cockburns albums, and for different reasons -- he embraces change and always seems to be exploring -- this album has a special place in my heart. The concluding song, "Strange Waters", makes the album worth buying for just that song alone. Bruce Cockburn spans the wide range of human emotions; he's truly alive. That turns some people off. He goes places some people don't want to go. But it touches me deeper than words can describe. He is truly a virtuoso.

That free speech reference was kind of fatuous. Actually, there is a resemblance between Bruce and the Keys, a little like Jimmy Buffet in singing accessable songs that are like Yeats or ferlinghetti. I would have voted to replace John Lennon with Bruce if the Beatles would have promised to keep working. But Charity of the Night sort of proves that albums like Nashville Skyline, Revolver, St. Dominic's Preview stay around a long time. This is one of those products that's genuinely marvelous. I bet it flies off the shelves like an eagle. Nice job Bruce...

Charity of Night presents one of the most coherent pieces in Cockburn's long, respected career. The CD continues in the vein of his more recent, eclectic musical efforts, but the tracks work together to create a collage that finds its focal point in the title track. Musically, there are few weak links here; lyrically, this CD is Cockburn's most poetically satisfying in years. There is an appealing, hard-edged intensity to many of the songs (especially "Strange Waters" and "Get Up, Jonah") that is often tempered by works that sooth troubled waters ("Pacing the Cage" and "Charity of Night"). The CD serves as an appropriate introduction to Cockburn and, to his long-time devotees, as a satisfying complication of his work. If you feel that modern life too often lacks substance, then Cockburn's art may be an antidote: the well-crafted, masterfully played music of an authentic self.