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Bruce Cockburn.
Rather than just sing about the invasion of Iraqi, Canadian singer songwriter Bruce Cockburn took a two-week trip to Baghdad in January with three American peace activists: 70 year old Bishop Gumbleton of Detroit, photo journalist Linda Panetta and health worker Johanna Berrigan. Travelling light with just a camera, knapsack, sleeping bag, note pads and a guitar, they visited hospitals, schools, orphanages and squatter communities with 1,000 people living in the rubble of bombed out buildings. They met with the homeless, the unemployed, artists, musicians, doctors and shop keepers, and listened to their stories.
"No one in Iraq believes the Americans liberated them from a dictator, they know it's about the oil," says Cockburn (pronounced "Coe-burn"). "I'm sure they're glad to see the last of Saddam. But at least he got the electricity working a few days after the first Gulf War. The allies have failed to do that. Baghdad is a city of 5 million, yet there are no traffic lights or a phone service.
"Electricity is unreliable and comes on for a few hours here and there. When it breaks down, there are no pumps to pump the sewage or purify water. It's heart breaking to see kids playing in raw sewage in the streets. The number of homeless has risen. The biggest concern for the ordinary Iraqi is their lack of physical safety, car jacking and robberies are common. That entire infrastructure a society relies on has collapsed."
The Ottawa-born 58-year old Cockburn has visited other war torn places like Cambodia, Nicaragua and Mozambique, and admits there's been time when he's been reduced to tears. Songs like Lovers In A Dangerous Time, You've Never Seen Everything, If I Had A Rocket Launcher and Waiting For A Miracle emerged from such visits. But so far, nothing's come from the Iraq trip. "I can't force it, it'll come if it has to come," he explains. "I hope it does, though. I'd like to go back. The Iraqi people have a face for me now, I made acquaintances, and it's important for me to know what happens to them."
On his recent US dates, Cockburn toured with Linda Panetta's photo stories of Iraq. On stage, he chats about his experiences.
"But I don't lay it on too thick. My shows are always interactiive. Sometimes the crowd might ask. Sometimes they don't. But going there gave me a perspective: not just on people trying to survive, but on an empire-building country like America fuelled by its conservative forces."
If the authorities bugged the phones of John Lennon and Michael Franti, couldn't it happen to him? "Well, I don't know. I don't think about it. But my thoughts have been public, they're on all my 27 albums! I've never hidden the fact that I thought Bush was stupid or a liar, and America would be well to get rid of him."
Cockburn started out in "a standard issue middle class childhood: materially comfortable, not overly loving, but not deprived." At 14 he heard Elvis on the radio, and became obsessed with music. "I started to listen to jazz, first the mainstream stuff and then the avant garde of the Ornette Coleman." His first album came out in 1969. His music was initially folk-tinged from a Christian perspective. By the '80s they took on a political tone, using world music rhythms. In places like Canada, he's a superstar. In the US and Australia, the following is loyal and often vocal. If he could form a superstar band with other songwriters, who would they be?
"Ani DFi Franco would be a first choice. Most of my fave songwriters are female, so I'd go for Canadian performer Sarah Harmer who's going to make lots of waves soon. And what's a band without Tom Waits?"
Christie Eliezer
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Bruce Cockburn plays at the Gov on Tues 9 March.
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