ROCKET/SPACE: IF I HAD A ROCKET LAUNCHER/ALIAS RON KAVANA

Hang on, I hear you mutter, that's a song by Bruce Cockburn, pride of Canada, and it's already had a shout here, why, a mere 12 years ago. Indeed it has, saving me the time to mention that original version, good that it is, but I'm here talking about a whole different barrel of monkeys. OK, same song, different band, different time, well, six years, and a whole different ethos and vibe.

Let me take you back to the mid 80s. Contrary to cliche, it was not all poodle hair and shiny suit jackets, sleeves pulled up, at least not for me. Indeed, I had espoused rock music as being for losers, and embraced folk as my field and furrow. None of your finger in the ear and fluffy jumpers, mind, I was in much deeper than that. I had ditched my inky music press for Folk Roots, a glossy monthly devoted to all things folk and what would become world music, gathering up aspects of blues, country and bluegrass along the way. (Sadly, recently defunct.)I had taken up morris dancing, as mentioned here before, and started going to folk clubs, folk concerts and folk festivals. I guess I still do. One of my favourite haunts was the Red Lion Folk Club, still going, in King's Heath, Birmingham. (U.K.) They seemed to have a visionary approach and interpretation to folk, booking all, it seemed, the acts I was so avidly reading up about. If Dylan plugging in had led to the cry of traitor, this club was populated by all the people who had said goodo, as, for every staid stalwart of the trad. arr. brigade, and they booked the best of them too, they also had all the young turks, blazing away full pelt, plugged in and drums pounding. For a while it seemed a rotating feast, week on week, of Edward II, then with the Red Hot Polkas, Gregson & Collister and Alias Ron Kavana. EII, as they came to be abbreviated, were melodeon led reggae-morris fusion, a version running to this day. Clive Gregson and Christine Collister may have been just two voices and one guitar, but had more vim in their acousticity than the national grid, both then also members of the Richard Thompson band. And Alias Ron Kavana were just something else.

A night out with Alias Ron Kavana was one where you knew you would get good 'n' sweaty, requiring copious fluid intake and a firm floor below. The folk club was held in the upstairs room of a large roadhouse styled pub, so the fluids were guaranteed. How the floor held the bounce of the ferociously jigging audience from careering down through into the bar below, lord only knows, but it did, as the four piece band thrashed through a heady mix of rockabilly, irish folk and celtic soul, all fronted by the glorious paradox of, no alias, his real name, Ron Kavana, a balding and bellied pocket behemoth, with a light and adept touch on his guitar and a foot to the floor full throttle vocal roar. Channeling all his heroes, Elvis, Van the Man, Johnny Cash, he could effortlessly hold  the room, with no small nod to more modern players, Joe Strummer and Costello, say, with a hefty side order appreciative of the genius unfolding, unravelling even, of Shane McGowan. Backing was provided by second guitar, Mick Molloy, bass, Richie Robertson and drummer, Les Robertson, the whole a collective banshee of jubilant noise. Yet, at the same time they were winning the Best Live Act, year in and year out, at Folk Roots, they were essentially off radar to all else, initially having no record label to sign them. Eventually the band signed to Chiswick records, a small London based independent with a tiny roster of likeminded scallywags and reprobates. Of course I bought the record, Think Like a Hero, appalling cover picture and all. It seemed an age, five years, before the follow-up, Coming Days, dropped. Rocket Launcher was on this second album, a very much angrier version than the original. If Cockburn was despairing, musing on how far he could be pushed, Kavana and crew were ready, willing and able to press the button. By now I had left the Red Lion behind, catching the Alias band at a festival in Portsmouth, second on the big to Fairport Convention. I seem to recall the Alias band won.

And then it all seemed to stop. The Alias band fell apart. I vaguely recall some form of RK big band, now with his wife on fiddle, it all seeming too messy and muddled. To be fair, it may have been me that was messy and muddled that night, it being a troubled time in my life, as well, it seemed, as I later read, in his. Trying to keep up, I learnt of links with ex-Pogue Terry Woods, as the Bucks, that never seemed to last, and of other dalliances, as he gradually fell off the map. My last sighting was an erudite collection, Irish Songs of Resistance, Rebellion and Reconciliation, gathering he had largely packed in the music biz for a life in academia. It all seemed a bit dry and dull after the ceilidh of his earlier stuff, sad even, as it seemed to be then recycled into a 40 Favourite Irish Songs for misty eyed irish ex-pats, of whom there is a wealth in Birmingham, and who would probably faint if the Alias Band were to crank up in their earshot. (As balance, I also sought out, for this piece, other explanations for this sudden apparent change of direction and fortune, discovering a somewhat different slant. I may have been chasing the craic, he was altogether on a more serious journey. His most recent release was supposed to be a collection of songs from the Irish Travelling diaspora, due in 2017, but I cannot determine whether that ever materialised. A facebook presence seems also to denote some, um, issues, changing from 'Ron Kavana-musician', and hosted by his seemingly long-suffering agent, if his comments belie anything worthwhile, to 'Ron Kavanagh', a whole more closed book, attributing only his university linkage.)

By way of conclusion, here he is a decade ago. I hope all is well with you, Ron, and may the road rise with you.

And you?

Religion: What About The Bond

Bruce Cockburn: What About the Bond

[purchase]

In 1980, Bruce Cockburn released Humans. The album is a collection of songs about the various forms of injustice in the world. What About the Bond comes almost exactly in the middle of the album, and it makes clear that Cockburn sees testifying about these injustices as a religious obligation. Cockburn urges all of us to stop turning a blind eye to human suffering, a message that is at least as relevant today as it was in 1980. I haven’t read the whole Book, but I’m pretty sure that there is a parable about that…

Doublespeak: When It’s Gone, It’s Gone

Bruce Cockburn: When It‘s Gone, It‘s Gone

[purchase]

When I have posted songs by Bruce Cockburn before, I have tended to concentrate on his words. The man can be passionate and poetic, often in the same song. And Cockburn is an eloquent spokesman for the oppressed, as well as one of the best writers of songs of the spirit that I know of. Left out of those discussions has been the fact that Cockburn is also a very fine guitar player. Since When It’s Gone, It’s Gone is an instrumental, Cockburn’s prowess on the guitar is impossible to miss here. Actually, those same qualities of passion, poetry, and eloquence are found here as well. Cockburn is joined here by Edgar Meyer on bass, Mark O’Connor on violin, and Booker T Jones on organ. Each of these gentlemen is a master of his instrument, and all are much in demand as session players as a result. In such distinguished company, Cockburn more than holds his own. Liner note freaks will also appreciate knowing that this one was produced by T-Bone Burnett.

The Winter Months: January in the Halifax Airport Lounge

Bruce Cockburn: January in the Halifax Airport Lounge

[purchase]

We Americans have always been slow to discover Canadian artists, if we do at all. Bruce Cockburn was already almost ten years into his career when we finally noticed. By that time, Cockburn had gone through a spiritual crisis, and gone from being a man with no noticeable faith to becoming a devout, although nonsectarian, Christian. January in the Halifax Airport Lounge dates from the beginning of that process, and it possibly offers some hints as to what sparked it. Here, Cockburn seems to face the prospect of being separated from his loved one, apparently to fight a war in Cyprus. (Does anyone know why “ Some Winnipeg boys are Cyprus-bound” in 1975? If so, please respond in the comments.) Then again, could Cockburn’s narrator be feeling not the sorrow of human parting, but the fear of having been forsaken by God? It may be a stretch, but it would be bourn out by the direction Cockburn’s songs soon took.

Discoveries: Lovers in a Dangerous Time

Bruce Cockburn: Lovers in a Dangerous Time

[purchase]

I always wanted to be a writer. My mother was a reporter for a local newspaper, and she always told us what a chore it was to write up the meetings she had to cover. But she would sometimes get a feature assignment, and then her eyes would light up, and we would hear all about what she was working on. My father was not that interested in writing. His thing was making things work. We were the last family in the universe to own a working black-and-white TV, and that was my father’s doing. He also liked to get numbers to do his bidding, and he dreamed of me becoming a mathematician. But he ruined that, and he was the one who inspired me to write. That’s because my father expressed his love for me by sharing stories. He made sure I read all 14 of L Frank Baum’s Oz books, and he introduced me to the Andrew Lang fairy tale collections. So I took to writing science fiction and horror stories.

Of course, I also grew up surrounded by music. So most of my nonfiction reading was about music. I was lucky to have access to some of the best music writers, including Robert Palmer in the New York Times, and Timothy White and others in Musician magazine. And I always read the reviews. So, I remember reading about a musician from Canada who was new to me. Palmer wrote about how Bruce Cockburn had spent time in Nicaragua living among the Sandinistas, and had written an album about it. And then I saw the review in Musician, and I knew I wanted the album. Stealing Fire opened with Lovers in a Dangerous Time, and I knew my sources had led me to something good.

Putting all of this together, I realized that I was on a path back then whose nature I did not fully realize at the time. I was on my way to becoming a music writer myself. I don’t know if I will ever be as good as Robert Palmer or Timothy White, but that is what I strive for in my writings here and on Oliver di Place.

Morning: Hills of Morning

Bruce Cockburn: Hills of Morning

[purchase]

I first heard of Bruce Cockburn in 1979, when I read a review of Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws in Rolling Stone. I was intrigued, but I didn’t get the album at the time. I got his next one, Steeling Fire. I believe Dragon’s Jaws was the first Cockburn album to become available in the United States, and Stealing Fire marked his breakthrough with American audiences. What took us so long?

Hills of Morning comes from Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws, and is the closest thing to a title track. What is the song about? By 1986, even Cockburn couldn’t completely remember. Here is what he said at that time:

Phil Catalfo: What I want to get to here, is how some of that is reflected in some of your songs in a way that is really quite exhilarating, I think, to the listener who may be Christian or not. One song in particular I'm thinking of is from an album called Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws. The song is called "Hills of Morning" and that song has always fascinated me and I wish you'd tell us something about it, how, where that song came from. Perhaps we could listen to it in a moment.

BC: Yeah, I'll keep it short because I can't remember very much about where it came from, at this point, it's a while back. Generally that whole album reflects probably the closest I've been able to come to expressing that particular kind of spirituality. The album was influenced partly by the fact that during the period that songs were being written I read all of the works of Charles Williams, who is an English writer with a particularly pronounced ability to describe spiritual things in very vivid terms. Most of his books are novels. They're sort of mystery novels almost, that deal with different elements of the occult, but bringing it around to a Christian point of view. And his own particular experience seems very strange. There's a sense of depth of being in those novels that is really both disturbing and thrilling at the same time. Anyway, that kind of pervaded the writing of the songs because the books were so much in my head at the time. But it's also the ... it was my own experience too that it was ... you know part of being a Christian is kinda getting to know Jesus. I mean you hear, again the TV guys are very quick to talk about a personal relationship with Jesus, and so on. It's a little unclear exactly what they mean by that. My own experience was that I felt that I was having a ...

Phil Catalfo: A personal relationship?

BC: A personal relationship, yeah, with a kind of ineffable being who was certainly no one other than Christ, who would occasionally put thoughts into my mind, and so on, you know, that were very clear, although the voice was a very quiet one and you had to listen for it. But it also sort of, after a while it got familiar enough, and I'd also without wanting to ... without getting into sort of being irreverent ... I kinda felt that that familiarity was something that should be encouraged, and talked about, in a way. So, you know, you hear in this song "a bunch of us were busy waiting" ... I sort of imagined myself being a street person in first century Jerusalem. And, here we are we're all sitting around in the street ...

Phil Catalfo: Pitching pennies ...

BC: In effect. Rolling bones, or whatever they did. That sort of led to the development of this song.

- from Bruce Cockburn interviewed by Phil Catalfo, "Music That Matters" programme, New Dimensions Radio, San Francisco, California,15 July 1986.

Before I found this quote, I found myself thinking of the Fool in the Tarot deck. The fool is open to new experiences, as he sets off heedlessly into the world. Is he foolish or wise? For me, it fits with this song.

O Canada / If: Transitional Songs

There's always more on the list of possibilities than we have time to post. And I generally avoid the end-of-theme omnibus approach if I can. But since there's a few songs on my playlist which fit both incoming and outgoing themes, it seemed generally beneficial to tout who I could while I had the chance.

Jann Arden: If It Be Your Will
[purchase]

First, one Canadian singer-songwriter covering another - convenient, as Susan posted the Webb Sisters' version of this just last month, and you've surely heard the Leonard Cohen original. "Pop vocalist" Jann Arden can get syrupy, but I think the slow ballad americana she adopts on otherwise mediocre popstar Cohen tribute Tower of Song makes for a surprisingly effective twist of sentiment in comparison to the other versions we've heard.

The Spinney Brothers: If I Were Your Brother
[purchase]

Second, a bluegrass band I saw just last weekend, whose titular core members are still going strong after being together since infancy. Yes, they have bluegrass in Canada. And the Spinney Brothers are among the best the north has to offer.

Bruce Cockburn: If I Had A Rocket Launcher
[unpurchaseable; original here]

Third, a solo acoustic version of Bruce Cockburn's pro-Contra anthem, recorded in 1990 for an in-studio radio thing. I wrote about the song way back in May 2008, as part of our 1984 theme, so I won't bother going over the lyrical anger again, but the song bears repeating, and not just because the links on the original post are long gone.

Barenaked Ladies: If I Had $1,000,000
[purchase]

And finally, the silliest Barenaked Ladies anthem around - the debut album original version, because I'm a purist, though the live version on Rock Spectacle is worth owning, too. Complete with Canadian references to something called Kraft Dinner, which us States-ians know as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Color My World: Primary Colors Edition

Suzanne Vega: Small Blue Thing

[purchase]

Small. Blue. Thing. Three short words which combine to form an intricate puzzle. There is a sense here of small, as in insignificant. Blue here may represent sad. Or, taken together, this small blue thing may be something rare and precious. All of this is in Suzanne Vega’s lyric, for the listener to puzzle out. The solution to the puzzle changes every time I listen. And that makes this one of Vega’s best songs.

Bruce Cockburn: Red Brother Red Sister

[purchase]

Bruce Cockburn is a Canadian artist who made several albums there before anyone in the United States ever heard of him. So, we had a lot of lost time to make up for. Here, Cockburn addresses the topic of prejudice against Native Americans. We Americans tend to shunt this subject aside; we have “more important things to worry about”, seems to be the attitude. But, judging by the number of Canadian artists I have heard address the subject, the subject is much closer to the surface there. I would like to hear from our Canadian readers on this. Cockburn has delivered some strident political messages in some of his songs, but here he keeps it low key, and the song is better for it.

October Project: Sunday Morning, Yellow Sky

[purchase]

The original lineup of October Project only lasted for two albums. Then, Mary Fahl, whose lead vocals were so much a part of there sound, went solo and the group broke up. More recently, I heard that they got back together without Fahl, but I regard that as a different group using the name. The original lineup is heard here, with Fahl’s soaring alto at the front.

Sunday Morning, Yellow Sky depicts a man in desperate straits. His redemption lies in the dream of a lover, or perhaps the blessing of an angel as he sleeps. This song is also open to multiple interpretations. But the importance of dreams is clear. The song closes with a quote from Alice In Wonderland, as Alice falls down the rabbit hole. We the listeners know what dreams await her, but she does not.

Peace on Earth: All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace)

Timbuk 3: All I Want for Christmas (Is World Peace)

[purchase]

Though the intent of this week's theme is to provide an opportunity for both Holiday music and, more generally, songs of peace and fellowship from the entire musical and seasonal spectrum, I couldn't resist kicking things off with a peace-themed song from Christmases past.

I had a thing for Timbuk 3 in the late eighties, thanks to an equally outcast friend who played synthesizer; my fandom was piqued, in part, by the 1987 release of this perfect 80s geek rock holiday single, and it culminated with the following year's release of Out of Eden, before fading into the pre-grunge era as the decade turned.

Looking back, I find most music from the era both dated and precious, as if a packaged piece of childhood. All I Want for Christmas is a perfect sample: quintessentially late eighties, and particularly Timbuk 3, from lead singer Pat MacDonald's wry, unsubtle political songwriting to the faintly fuzzed-out nasal harmonies in doubled fifths. The lyrics are quite a literal commentary on commercialism as a reflection of war, running down a list of violence-inducing toys in each verse before falling into a somewhat petulant, trancelike repetition of wanting world peace instead.

Like much of the Timbuk 3 / Pat MacDonald canon, in fact, it fits well both lyrically and sonically with follow up to yesterday's post on Jim White, albeit a bit more danceable; fans of Oingo Boingo and Wall of Voodoo will find the song especially pleasing. Meanwhile, those looking for a slightly less dated take on the same sentiment will enjoy this live bootleg bluesy electro-folk 1993 cover from similarly politicized post-folkies Bruce Cockburn and Jackson Browne; it takes a minute to warm up, but it's worth it.

Bruce Cockburn and Jackson Browne: All I Want for Christmas is World Peace

[unreleased; popularly available on Santa's Boots]

Advice: Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life

Monty Python: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (original)
[purchase]

Harry Nilsson: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
[out of print]

Bruce Cockburn: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
[purchase]

Brobdingnagian Bards: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life
[purchase]

And now for something completely different...

Here's some sage advice and advocacy for cheerful eternal optimism originally delivered from the cross at the close of Monty Python's Life of Brian. The story has it that the guys were hot and "cross" (if you'll pardon the pun) up on their crucifixes while filming the final scene, so Eric Idle started making stuff up to entertain them all. In the end, the Python troupe chose to make the song into a kind of wide-shot cinematic nod to the big finish, a majestic parody of the type of big number that closes, say, a Disney film, all the better to make light of the impending death of the singing, dancing characters.

I've also included three great covers of the same, each arguably as zany and tongue-in-cheek as the original, from three artists with a strong handle on irony themselves. Bonus points: Eric Idle actually worked with Harry Nilsson on the production of Flash Harry, Nilsson's obscure and out of print last full album, from whence the above cover comes.

1984: If I Had A Rocket Launcher

Bruce Cockburn: If I Had A Rocket Launcher

[purchase]

Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn had been around for a few years, but he made the musical "map" in 1984 after a fact-finding trip to Central America with OXFAM left him reeling with the horror of the death and destruction the Reagan Administration's leadership in the area had brought upon the people. Being a musician steeped in the political folk tradition, instead of coming back and picketing or merely hanging his head in despair, Cockburn turned his anger to social justice through song, heading into the studio in a storm.

The resulting album, Stealing Fire, was both an expression of frustration and a call to action. Taken as a set, the songs of Stealing Fire were so antithetical to the values of the Reagan administration that the album put Bruce Cockburn under suspicion as a sympathiser to the Nicaraguan Contras, and his visa was taken away. Nonetheless, Cockburn's music traveled where he could not. And the fire he fueled made him a star.

I like many of the songs on Stealing Fire; Lovers in a Dangerous Time, especially, is a perfect ode to nervous love amidst the ruins. But if Stealing Fire is folk rock at its political best, If I Had A Rocket Launcher is its angriest outlet, a direct response to Cockburn's visit to a refugee camp which had been recently attacked by the US-backed Guatemalan Army. It was a pretty big hit on MTV, and, though I was only eleven, I remember the song leaving me with a sense that maybe, just maybe, all was not right with the world after all.

---

Afterthought, and bonus version: I put Cockburn away for a long time after the late eighties; his more recent preference for moody plugged-in soundscapes is great stuff, but it is often too pop-produced for my taste. But a few years ago I discovered this bittersweet live acoustic version, from a 1990 radio session, and it renewed my interest in the song.

Without the crashing eighties production of the original, the stripped down Rocket Launcher delivers such an incredible pain, such a potent cry of impotence, it stands as ageless. And that's good, because we still need such a cry, I think. For if anything, in a world where torture still happens in our name, we are even less empowered to do anything about it than we were when Cockburn wrote this magnum opus.

Bruce Cockburn: If I Had A Rocket Launcher (live acoustic version)