Music and more with claudecat17 (aka Chris Davlin)!

Bruce Cockburn is a pretty amazing musician that most Americans have never heard of but has always been huge in his native Canada, literally royalty there, with big record sales too over the years despite being an intentionally controversial entity. He’s an enigma, though part of what I thought I knew about him not being true makes that slightly less true. He’s not gay, but he is a devout Christian who came to it after having an “I felt Jesus’ presence!” moment during a marital disagreement, well after his career was underway. He’d been raised as an agnostic. That strikes me as odd and kinda mundanely hilarious. No prior Jesus experience, and all of a sudden the despair of a marital spat brings Him permanently into Cockburn’s life. It’s like a sitcom plot! Next week on “Here’s Jesus” you’ll see what happens when a… Right? Weird…

But it seems to have genuinely helped make him what he is, an immensely talented singer/songwriter/guitarist who travels the world on behalf of several causes that are of personal interest, environmental, economic and political injustice, rights of indigenous peoples, etc. Cockburn writes very specific songs about all that, a few of which have even scraped the pop charts here in America.

The one I’ve chosen today is one of his best in my opinion. He collaborated with T-Bone Burnett on a few albums in the 90s and this was one called Nothing But a Burning Light, the title coming from the Blind Willie Johnson cover which is featured, an extremely fine rendition by the way. But I like this tune better. It’s basically a narrative of the events surrounding Jesus’ conception, birth, and subsequent adventures, done so concisely and with such casual story telling skill that you get swept up in the whole thing and before you know it your eyes seem to be leaking again. Happened earlier today, so I figured I’d make it today’s foisting. I love that word! Foist! It’s helpful! Possibly annoying, but helpful! Here’s the tune: