Description
Humans is the tenth studio album by the Canadian singer, songwriter, and guitarist Bruce Cockburn, released on True North Records in 1980, manufactured and distributed by CBS Records Canada. Released in the US by Millennium Records, manufactured and distributed by RCA Records. The album was recorded July-August 1980 by Gary Gray at Manta Sound in Toronto, Canada; with Eugene Martynec producing for True North Productions. All songs written by Bruce Cockburn.
Dubby bass lines, jazzy, rich and subtle splashes of saxophone and keyboards and the shimmering beauty of Cockburn’s guitar churning and sashaying elegantly beneath his sublimely uttered truth. In the words of music critic Andy Whitman: “Occasionally you find an album that cuts through the bullshit and presents life poetically but in stark honesty. ‘Humans’ is that album.”
Ranked by many as Bruce Cockburn’s best album, Humans is a watershed release in the acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter’s stellar career. Humans represented the first of Cockburn’s more electric, rock-oriented releases, after the trilogy of acoustic jazz folk recordings that culminated in 1979’s Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws. The latter produced the reggae-flavored “Wondering Where The Lions are”, which became a Top 40 hit in both Canada and the United States. Where “Lions” featured the rhythm section of Jamaican star Leroy Sibbles’ group. Humans‘ anthemic “Rumours of Glory”, with its bouncy bass, added the reggae legend himself on backup vocals. Cockburn, wielding an electric guitar and backed by such new band members as violonist Hugh Marsh and keyboardist Jon Goldsmith, infused the entire album with a tougher, more uptempo sound.
The tone changed in 1980 with the release of Humans, a beautiful, gritty, sad chronicle of the end of Cockburn’s marriage. If Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream” could be set to music, then Cockburn may have done it with Humans. It is the sound of loneliness and isolation, desperation and, finally, newfound hope and healing. “Bloody nose and burning eyes/ Raised in laughter to the skies” is the way Cockburn expressed it, and for many of his fans it remains his best album. [Paste Magazine]
Bruce Cockburn asks, “You see the extremes, of what humans can be?” in «Rumours of Glory», which works as an excellent summation of Humans, his 11th album. Between the opener «Grim Travellers» and the beautifully contemplative final track «The Rose Above the Sky», he examines these “extremes” not only in others, but also in himself. Along the way, Cockburn attempts to make sense of his own spirituality and faith in a world of imperialism, greed, urban violence, and even his own divorce. However, he questions himself as thoroughly as he does the world around him. Although he’d often touched on social issues in the past, he’d never dealt with them quite so acutely, or on such a grand scale as he does here. Cockburn also seemed to understand that the U.S. Top 40 success of «Wondering Where the Lions Are» from the previous year, though a pleasant surprise, was somewhat of a fluke, and continued to progress without necessarily trying to duplicate the feat. There’s a toughness here, both musically and lyrically, at which he had merely hinted before. More than any of his prior releases, Humans is able to convey, not only the love and mercy of his Christian beliefs, but also the anger and frustration of trying to live in a world of “gutless arrogance and rage…” where people are treated as if they were “…so many cattle.” In the late ’70s, Cockburn’s music began to change and grow to a great degree, and with Humans it reaches fruition and remains one of the most important recordings in his extensive catalog. [Thom Jurek, AMG]
CD re-issue, 2002
Back in 1980 I first discovered the music of Bruce Cockburn with this album and was immediately delighted by the way he fashioned a mix of rock, jazz and roots influences. Little did I know at the time that many of these raw, emotional, bittersweet songs were penned during the turmoil of his marriage break up. The gentle «You Get Bigger As You Go» reports on his recovery from the relationship break up whilst «Fascist Architecture» looks at the barriers that can be built up during a relationship and «What About The Bond» examines the spiritual consequences. Other songs like «Tokyo» and «Grim Travellers» are more like reportage and reveal a fresh style of song writing that Cockburn has greatly exploited to the present day. The album also contains one absolute classic song, the hopeful reggae influenced «Rumours Of Glory». Many people rate this as Cockburn’s finest album and who am I to disagree? Digitally remastered, it’s sounding better than ever. [Mike Rimmer, Cross Rhythms, March 2004]
Bruce Cockburn aficianados stand back and take another look – at Humans. Focusing on horizontal rather than vertical spiritual matters, Cockburn addresses the darker shades of our sometimes explosive, sometimes entropic existence earthside. In this unique collection of introspective poetry set to music, “Face One” creates an ode-like movement from the mundane materialism and isolated individuality of life («Grim Travellers») and its intimations of immortality («Rumors of Glory») through the questioning spirit («What About The Bond» and «More Not More») towards growth and union («You Get Bigger As You Go» and «What About The Bond».) “Face Two” presents experiential and concrete poetry with political undertones. The LP concludes with a promise of transcendence using “the Rose above the sky” and “the light behind the sun” as dominant images.
(A note to born-again listeners with sensitive natures: «You Get Bigger As You Go» and «Tokyo» contain two vulgar words possibly offensive and probably not radio material.) [CCM (Records – What’s New), November 1980]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/humans-deluxe-edition/295779583)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Grim Travellers” – 4:51
A2. “Rumours Of Glory” – 3:38
A3. “More Not More” – 3:50
A4. “You Get Bigger As You Go” – 4:35
A5. “What About The Bond” – 4:55
Side Two
B1. “How I Spent My Fall Vacation” – 5:10
B2. “Guerrilla Betrayed” – 3:56
B3. “Tokyo” – 3:25
B4. “Fascist Architecture” – 2:37
B5. “The Rose Above The Sky” – 6:23
Note: Simultaneously released on 8-track tape, cassette, and 12-inch vinyl LP by True North Records. Later re-isssued on CD. A Remastered CD edition of the album was released by True North Records in 2003 featuring a bonus track, Grim Travellers (Live) – 5:59. Available at Bandcamp: https://brucecockburn.bandcamp.com/album/humans-deluxe-edition
A full-page advertisement for Bruce Cockburn’s album Humans was featured in the November 1980 issue of CCM Magazine. (The same ad was also featured in the October 25, 1980 issue of Record World.)
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.