Description
Stealing Fire is the thirteenth studio album by the Canadian singer, songwriter, and guitarist Bruce Cockburn, released on True North Records in 1984, manufactured and distributed by CBS Records Canada. Also released in the US by Gold Mountain Records, manufactured and distributed by A&M Records. The album was recorded March-April 1984 by John Naslen at Manta Sound in Toronto, Canada; with Jon Goldsmith and Kerry Crawford producing for True North Productions. (John Naslen received the Canadian Juno Award for “Recording Engineer of the Year” for his work on this album, and producers Jon Goldsmith and Kerry Crawford were as well nominated in the “Producer of the Year” category.) Includes the hit singles “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” and “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”. Featuring Bruce Cockburn on guitar and vocals, producer Jon Goldsmith on keyboards, and a rhythm section consisting of Fergus Jemison Marsh on bass and Chapman Stick and Miche Pouliot on drums, with Chi Sharpe providing percussion.
After a trip to Central America on behalf of the Canadian arm of the charity Oxfam, Cockburn crafted an album featuring world-music influences and lyrics concerning life in the third world. He was moved by the plight of Guatemalan refugees in southern Mexico (“On the Rio Lancantún one hundred thousand wait”), and wrote the song “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” which reached a high of No. 88 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with an associated music video regularly played on MTV. Despite the apparent threat of violence in the lyrics, Cockburn would later state, “this is not a call to arms; this is a cry.”
The single “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” contains some of Cockburn’s most recognizable lyric writing form, with the picturesque line “got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight”. This line would be picked up by U2’s lead singer and lyricist Bono who would use it in the U2 song “God Part II” (from their 1988-album Rattle and Hum) with his own line “I heard a singer on the radio late last night/ Says he’s gonna kick the darkness till it bleeds daylight”. For this reason, Cockburn is credited in the liner notes to Rattle and Hum.
Stealing Fire was included among CCM Magazine‘s Top 10 Albums of the Year, voted number two on a list featuring ten albums released between November 1, 1983 and October 15, 1984. – Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn) tied for the number 10 spot last year with ‘The Trouble with Normal’. Smith-Newcomb reviewed this Canadian’s LP in October: “On ‘Stealing Fire’… Cockburn continus using poetry and music as a social conscience for the thinking contemporary person.” Critic Wendy Elaine Nelles explained: “Cockburn risks controversy and vulnerability; his gutsiness deserves my vote.”
In 1984 we find Canadian Bruce Cockburn still the lone, grim traveler, dancer and dreamer, wondering where the lions are, going up against chaos, still standing outside a broken phone booth with money in his hand. On Stealing Fire, his sixth release since the monumental Circles In The Stream (a double, live anthology of his best early work), Cockburn continues using poetry and music as a social conscience for the thinking contemporary person.
Stealing Fire – following last year’s The Trouble with Normal, acclaimed by this magazine’s critics as one of 1983’s ten best albums – revives Cockburn’s fine acoustic stylings, as in Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaw and Humans. Keyboardist Jon Goldsmith is accompanied by Fergus Marsh on bass and stick, Miche Pouliton on drums, and Chi Sharpe on percussion. Although Third World and urban contemporary rhythms dominate, Cockburn’s guitars and folky vocals along with his moving lyrics give the depth and heart to Stealing Fire.
The opening tracks, «Lovers in a Dangerous Time», recalls the need for “tough love” from «Going Up Against Chaos» (from Trouble): “when you’re lovers in a dangerous time/ sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime – / but nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight – / got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight.”
Meaning is found in relationships both tangible and ultimate («Making Contact»), sensual love («Sahara Gold»), and working for the shalom (peace) of the earth in the coming kingdom («To Raise the Morningstar»).
Cockburn’s awareness and concern for liberation and justice in Central America and the Third World (which became evident on Humans and was handled directly on Trouble) has taken decisive shape here. In the anthemic «Nicaragua», he portrays the human sadness of noble locals fighting for freedom against perceived North American oppressors. «If I Had a Rocket Launcher» explores the emotions of anger and the desire for vengance over atrocities “too sickening to relate.” While not expressing pretty feelings, they may reflect the emotions felt by victims of the conflict in Central America.
Cockburn adheres to a liberation theology indigenous to numerous Christian fellowships in the Third World. Whether he comes by it practically through his travelling experiences in Central America, or in a more studied manner, such as the writing of Gustavo Gutierrez and others, he expresses it most explicitly in «Dust and Diesel». The concepts of liberation and salvation become intertwined – and the work of shalom cannot divorce the realm of the spiritual from the physical, political, and economic.
«Maybe the Poet» uses the concept of Galatians 3:28 to express the need for all of us to hear the different voices of human experience, including the poet’s own: “male female slave or free/ peaceful or disorderly/ maybe you and he will not agree/ but you need him to show you new ways to see/ … pay attention to the poet/ you need him and you know it.” Bruce Cokburn’s voice and artistic presence is one, I feel, that we deeply need. [Quincy Smith-Newcomb, CCM, October 1984]
CD re-issue, 2002
20 years ago Bruce Cockburn visited Central America for the first time and what he saw provoked a lot of songs on ‘Stealing Fire’ where his righteous indignation pours out into classics like «Lovers In A Dangerous Time» and the pithy, wonderful, descriptive «Dust And Diesel». There is the romance of «Sahara Gold» and the gospel inspiration of «To Raise The Morning Star» and the most notorious of the set’s songs «If I Had A Rocket Launcher». Written after visiting a refugee which had recently been attacked by the US backed Guatemalan army, the song describes the raw horror of such actions as Cockburn rails against the system that makes such events happen. 20 years on, the passion of the songs captured here still feel sadly relevant. [Mike Rimmer, Cross Rhythms, March 2004]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/stealing-fire-deluxe-edition/295118335)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Lovers In A Dangerous Time” – 4:06
A2. “Maybe The Poet” – 4:53
A3. “Sahara Gold” – 4:31
A4. “Making Contact” – 3:46
A5. “Peggy’s Kitchen Wall” – 3:42
Side Two
B1. “To Raise The Morning Star” – 5:52
B2. “Nicaragua” – 4:47
B3. “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” – 4:59
B4. “Dust And Diesel” – 5:24
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by True North Records, with printed inner sleeve featuring lyrics and credits in both French and English. Later re-issued on CD. Two songs recorded during the Stealing Fire sessions, “Yanqui Go Home” and “Call It the Sundance”, did not make the final album cut due to the length of the album. They would later be released by True North Records in 2003 on a remastered CD edition of the album. Available at Bandcamp: https://brucecockburn.bandcamp.com/album/stealing-fire-deluxe-edition
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