You’ve Never Seen Everything

Description

You’ve Never Seen Everything is the 21th studio album by the Canadian singer, songwriter, and guitarist Bruce Cockburn, released on True North Records in June 2003. The album was recorded October 7 – December 16, 2002, by John Whynot and Colin Linden at various studios in Canada and the US – Studio Frisson in Montreal, The Clubhouse in Toronto, Deep Field in Nashville, and Groove Masters in Los Angeles – with Bruce Cockburn and Colin Linden producing. Mixed by Whynot at Skip Saylor Recording in Los Angeles, California. All songs written by Bruce Cockburn. Features harmony vocals by Sam Phillips, Emmylou Harris, Jonell Mosser, Sarah Harmer, and Jackson Browne.

If ever a singer/songwriter was underrated (and criminally so) it was Bruce Cockburn. For years now, he has been quietly producing songs of anger, beauty and sheer brilliance, and with this latest set – augmented by a few loops, a rap here and there and more brilliant observations about this absurd world in which we live – Bruce has proven that he’s still got plenty to say and a seemingly bottomless pit of ways of saying it. Opener «Tried And Tested» is superb radio-friendly pop, but one look at the lyrics (thoughtfully provided with a French translation – Bruce is from Canada) throws a swift curveball. With tracks like «Postcards From Cambodia» and «Put It In Your Heart», Bruce is still an angry young man – perhaps in an older man’s body, granted, and this makes him as relevant as ever and probably even more important to Christendom. Essential listening. I defy anyone to be unmoved and unaffected by another Cockburn masterpiece. [Steve Best, Cross Rhythms, September 2003]

The songwriter often described as “the social-conscience of Canada” should have the range of his influence extended. With this latest album – chock-full of poignant poetry, satire, spirituality and maybe his best music to date – Bruce Cockburn should be renamed the social conscience of the world.

I’ve enjoyed Cockburn’s style since first hearing «If a Tree Falls» back in 1989, but to be honest, I haven’t kept pace with his abundance of releases throughout the 90’s. However, a guitarist friend of mine who has told me that he thought Bruce Cockburn was tending to “under-write” his recent songs; meaning they were overly simple and more could be done with them. A fair comment I thought, particularly after hearing his 1994 album Dart to the Heart.

However, from the Edge-like guitar and electronic loops of «Tried and Tested», the dazzling opening track of You’ve Never Seen Everything, it seems clear to me that Bruce is not sitting back on the laurels of a 30 year career anymore and is pushing himself ever onwards.

With the usual impressive list of collaborators, including Jackson Browne, Sarah Harmer, Emmylou Harris, and Sam Phillips, I’m finding this latest selection of original tunes from Cockburn to be addictive listening, with a blend of the straight-forward and the complex. To begin with, two thirds of the songs on this album clock in at over five-minutes each, demonstrating a respect for the creative spirit to go where the song leads.

Following the strong beginning and the more relaxed acoustic gentility of «Open», track three, «All Our Dark Tomorrows», is where this album’s power is unleashed; a grimy, pulsing guitar riff echoes around an anti-corporate lyric that slights a world leader (guess who) with traditional Cockburn ire. «Trickle Down» picks up a jazzy, Latin vibe – with a fantastic guitar solo from Bruce – to similarly lambaste economics that benefit the rich while fleecing the poor (“Brand new century, private penitentiary / Bank vault utopia padded for the few”).

After the brief, tender «Everywhere Dance», the darkly emotional «Put It in Your Heart» is a lament for the tragedy of 9/11 that struggles for some meaning amidst the pain. Similarly, «Postcards from Cambodia» acknowledges the horror of the inhumanity of war and concludes with the wisdom of a prophet;

This is too big for anger, too big for blame
We stumble through history so humanly lame
So I bow down my head, say a prayer for us all
That we don’t fear the spirit when it comes to call

The stirring Middle-Eastern thrum of «Wait No More» and the sweet «Celestial Horses» give way to the dreamy, abstract nine-minute monologue of the title track, which never labors in spite of its length and again puts the boot into corrupt businessmen, resolving in a truly beautiful chorus. Finally, after looking the evil of the world in the face for so long, Cockburn concludes the album with another prophetic reminder, «Don’t Forget About Delight» to a great, laid-back, countrified groove.

If my friend is right and Cockburn’s songs throughout the 90’s were “underwritten”, then the album’s acoustic post-script, «Messenger Wind» puts to rout any idea of that trend continuing. With a heart-rending chorus that is sung just once, it is the perfect closer to an extraordinary album that captures one faithful man’s reflections on the birthing pains of a new century;

Messenger wind swooping out of the sky
Lights each tiny speck of the human kaleidoscope with hope

I have never enjoyed a Bruce Cockburn album like I have this one. Perhaps the tragedies and wars that have marked the beginning of the new millennium have focused Cockburn’s talents as a songwriter, demanding truth be told with good melody, celebratory beauty and passion. This, he has achieved. I’m sure he would give it all up for a world that lives in peace, justice and equality, but in the meantime, this album should inspire the rest of us to get on with the job of creating that world which he so powerfully envisions. [Brendan Boughen, The Phantom Tollbooth, 6/24/2003]

Yes, it has arrived. Every few years we get another Bruce Cockburn album, the food that our wee souls desire and here is another lavish banquet of wordsmithery, not just clever in the literary sense but nearly 9 months pregnant with social observation, political clout and spiritual provocation.

Few, nay no one, gives this kind of content for money in a record of songs. Everything that we hope for in Cockburn is present and correct on this his first album of new tunes since 1999’s Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu. There is the personal soul searching discovery as on «Tried and Tested» and «Wait No More». There is the obligatory postcard from somewhere, this time it literally is titled «Postcard from Cambodia» a travelogue lament from Asia to add to his previous despatches from Nicaragua, Mozambique, Nepal, Chile and Eastern Europe. All come with a vicious indictment on humanity’s inability to live right in regard to our neighbours. A close relation here is the title track with its catalogue of inhumanitarian acts. Both are spoken word pieces, littered with that descriptive detail of streets and sunsets and the living on and below the two. In the latter there are a little too graphic account of some violent acts too!

There are two recurring themes on this album. First, the dark side. On «All Our Dark Tomorrows» he sings:

I can see in the dark – it’s where I used to live
I see excess and the gaping need
Follow the money – see where it leads
It’s to shrunken men stuffed up with greed

That greed, permeates the record. «Trickle Down» is about the deadly delusion that capitalism so diseased will trickle down sustenance for all. On «You’ve Never Seen Everything» it is the leaders of business who leads the leaders.

But the bright side is that never before has a Cockburn album been so riddled with light. Obviously his Christian faith has brought hopefulness and never so abundant. On «Celestial Horses» “there’s a darkness in the Canyon/ But the light comes pounding through for me and for you.” «Don’t forget About Delight» is a reminder that no matter how stranded or alone there is still light pounding through and «Everywhere Dance» that “in the ebb and flow of death and birth/ In wounded streets and whispered prayer/ The dance is the truth… and it’s everywhere. We close with the «Messenger Wind» and it is “sweeping out of the sky/ Lights each tiny speck in the human kaleidoscope/ with hope.”

So lyrically it is as always brilliant. Where I question St. Bruce on this album is that musically it is a little dense. Too few melodies or songs of the «Pacing The Cage» kind. The poetic intensity is always in need of those one or two little gentle moments and I am not sure that where he has tried to contemporise the songs that it ever really works. It can too frequently sound like one of his eighties albums. Of course there is nothing wrong with that but I am not sure that it is completely satisfactory either.

Can you tell that I am struggling to find the confidence to criticise. I would just like to get T-Bone Burnett back for an album. Or even more interestingly Daniel Lanois. We have all kinds of guest appearing here from Sam Phillips to Emmylou Harris (imagine Emmylou guesting!!!), the frogs of Zambia and Jackson Browne. There’s another possible producer; Jackson Browne. Or maybe Ani DiFranco. Just shake it up a little next time Bruce. We love it but we want to really, really love it! [Steve Stockman, Soul Surmise, 08/10/2007]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/youve-never-seen-everything/360935017)

CD tracklist:

01. Tried And Tested – 5:00
02. Open – 3:57
03. All Our Dark Tomorrows – 6:15
04. Trickle Down – 6:16
05. Everywhere Dance – 4:18
06. Put It In Your Heart – 5:23
07. Postcards From Cambodia – 6:55
08. Wait No More – 4:04
09. Celestial Horses – 5:59
10. You’ve Never Seen Everything – 9:13
11. Don’t Forget About Delight – 5:48
12. Messenger Wind – 3:29

Note: The US and the non-US releases feature different cover artwork. Available at Bandcamp: https://brucecockburn.bandcamp.com/album/youve-never-seen-everything