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Here's Iraq, Where Irrigation Was Invented, Where Law Was Invented, Where Writing Was Invented. All These Things That We Consider Necessities Of Civilization Started There. And The People Who Live There Damn Well Know That.

-Bruce Cockburn

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Here's Iraq, Where Irrigation

Bruce Cockburn

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Here's Iraq, Where Irrigation Was Invented, Where Law Was Invented, Where Writing Was Invented. All These Things That We Consider Necessities Of Civilization Started There. And The People Who Live There Damn Well Know That.

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I'm Particularly Attuned To Lyrics, And Very Often A Bad Set Of Lyrics Will Ruin A Song For Me, While My Friends Will Be Just Grooving On The Music. I Don't Mean That It Has To Be About Anything In Particular, But There Has To Be Some Art Applied To It, Simple Or Otherwise.

A Number Of Iraqis Told Us They Had Welcomed The U.s. Forces As Liberators Initially But In The Intervening Months, They Had Come To Feel That They Had Swapped One Oppressive Regime For Another. The Iraqis Did Exchange One Oppression For A Lighter Kind, In Some Ways.

And I'm Wondering Where The Lions Are.

There's So Many Ways In Which Canada And America Are Inextricably Connected Politically, Economically, Socially. There's No Stepping Away. But At The Same Time, We Don't Have A Say. Canada Is A Different Country. Sometimes I Think Of It As Finland In The Soviet Era. We're Totally Free, But We're Totally Free To Agree, Basically. If We Disagree Too Heartily Or Over Too Sensitive An Issue, Then We Pay A Price For That.

In Between Effect And Cause And Just Beyond The Range Of Normal Sight, This Glittering Joker Was Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws.

One Day You're Waiting For The Sky To Fall, The Next You're Dazzled By The Beauty Of It All.

Everybody Wants To See Justice Done, To Somebody Else.

All These Years Of Thinking, Ending Up Like This: In Front Of All This Beauty, Understanding Nothing.

If I Try To Understand What It Means To Be A Christian, I Look At The Two Instructions That Were Given In The Bible That Are Paramount, And Those Are To Love God With All Your Heart And Mind, And To Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. That's It.

Here's Iraq, Where Irrigation Was Invented, Where Law Was Invented, Where Writing Was Invented. All These Things That We Consider Necessities Of Civilization Started There. And The People Who Live There Damn Well Know That.

Politics Is A Part Of Life And Art Is About Life. It Doesn't Mean That All The Art Has To Be About Politics - In Fact, Heaven Forbid. But Politics Is A Totally Legitimate Area Of Focus For Any Art, Whether It's Painting Or Songwriting Or Anything Else, As Much As Sex Is, As Much As Spirituality Is, As Much As Any Other Behavior Of People Is.

I'm Not A Pacifist. I Feel That There Are Situations Where Fighting Is Inescapable, But We Don't Go Looking For Those Things.

The Second Half Of The '60s Really Was A Kind Of Learning Period, In Terms Of Writing, For Me.

A Sane Person Doesn't Think War Is A Good Idea.

Though Chains Be Of Gold, They Are Chains All The Same.

Abu Ghraib, As Bad As It Was, Can't Be Compared To What Saddam Was Doing To People.

Everything That Makes A Society Run Is Broken In Iraq. The Only Real Structure Is The People's Own Sense Of Themselves As Iraqis, Which Was Very Strong. They're A Proud People, And They Trace Their Historic Roots Way, Way Back.

I Remember When The Idea Of Living To Be 40 Seemed Absurd.

There Is No Gap Between Art And Politics.

There Are Some Decision-makers In The World Whose Version Of Sanity Is A Little Different From What I Consider The Right One.

The Trouble With Normal Is It Always Gets Worse, Fashionable Fascism Dominates The Scene.

Since The Early '80s, I've Found Myself In War Zones In Various Parts Of The World.

I Always Write The Lyrics First. There Are One Or Two Exceptions Over The Years, But That's Pretty Much The Way It's Been. The Process Of Applying Music To Words Is A Bit Like Scoring A Film. You've Got Imagery.

Like A Stone On The Surface Of A Still River Driving The Ripples On Forever Redemption Rips Through The Surface Of Time In The Cry Of A Tiny Babe.

Little Round Planet In A Big Universe, Sometimes It Looks Blessed, Sometimes It Looks Cursed. Depends What You Look At Obviously, But Even More It Depends On The Way That You See.

Most Of The Time, Our Deeper, Stronger Feelings Are Things We All Have In Common.

Music Itself Isn't Enough To Completely Wear Down My Stash Of Anger. And I Don't Have All That Much More To Be Angry About Than Anyone Else. It's Not Like I Was Abused As A Kid Or Anything. I Had A Pretty Comfortable Childhood With Parents Who Took Good Care Of Me. But Resentment Exists, And Some Of It Goes Into The Music. Some Of It Goes Into Physical Activity.

Going To Places Like Honduras, Nicaragua, And Various African Countries You Get To See Very Clearly What The Cause And Effect Is. We Finance The Obnoxious Elites In Those Countries And They Exploit Their People So We Don't Have To Say That We're Doing The Exploiting But Nevertheless We Are Benefiting From It.

Lord, Spit On Our Eyes That We May See, How To Wake Up From This Tragedy.

My Models For Graceful Aging Are Guys Like John Lee Hooker And Mississippi John Hurt, Who Never Stopped Working Till They Dropped, As I Fully Expect To Be Doing, And Just Getting Better As Musicians And As Human Beings.

I Like To Think That If It Hadn't Gone As Well As It Has, If I Wasn't Able To Make A Living Off Of Playing Music, I Would Still Be Playing The Music. But, Of Course, I Wouldn't Likely Have Had The Opportunity To Travel, And A Lot Of The Places Have Inspired Songs.

My Overall Responsibility Is To Be Truthful. If People Pay Money To Come And See Me, Looking For Something Other Than That, Then They've Made A Mistake.

It Sounds Strange To Say It, But You Can Be In A War Zone And Have A Lot Of Fun. Even Though War Is Essentially Pain On All Sides, Human Beings Have The Capacity To Enjoy Themselves. The Soldiers Are Mostly Young People, Full Of Enthusiasm And Energy, And That's An Exciting Thing For An Old Guy Like Me.

Sometimes The Best Map Will Not Guide You, You Can't See What's Round The Bend. Sometimes The Road Leads Through Dark Places, Sometimes The Darkness Is Your Friend

Sun's Up, Uh Huh, Looks Okay - The World Survives Into Another Day, And I'm Thinking About Eternity. Some Kind Of Ecstasy Got A Hold On Me.

Some People Never See The Light Till It Shines Thru Bullet Holes.

Anger Is Energy, And You've Got To Find A Place To Put It That Works For You.

The People Who Have Impressed Me Most - And The Closest I've Come To Having Heroes - Are The People Who Have Devoted Their Lives To Making Things Better For Others. These Are People Whose Names You Never Hear, People Who Work For Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, And Other Humanitarian Groups. They're Just Out There In The World, Doing Stuff.

I Woke Up One Morning With This Song In My Head, And The Opening Line Of The Song: My Name Was Richard Nixon, Only Now I'm A Girl.

I Watch The Confusion Of Friends All Numb With Love Moving Like Stray Dogs To The Anthem Of Night Long Conversations Of Pulsing Rhythms And Random Voltage Voices In Spite Of Themselves Graceful As These Raindrops Creeping Spermlike Across The Car Window.

Almost All The Military Personnel Were Wearing Sunglasses. No Iraqis Wear Sunglasses. They Really Want To See Your Eyes. So Immediately They Can't Trust The Americans.

I Wear My Shadows Where They're Harder To See, But They Follow Me Everywhere. I Guess That Should Tell Me I'm Traveling Toward Light.

Love The Lord And In Him Love Me Too. And In Him, Go Your Own Way And I'll Be Right Here With You.

I Wanted To Play Rock And Roll When I Started Playing. Nobody At That Time Ever Thought About Songwriting. You Sang Songs, That's All. You Sang Other People's Songs. That's All There Were.

Sometimes I Catch Myself Doing Something That I've Already Done. The More I've Done, The More That's Likely To Happen. Then I Just Throw It Away. I Wait Until I've Got The Right Way Of Getting A Thing Done, Which Means My Songwriting Proceeds At A Very Slow Pace. But It's The Only Way I Can Really Work.

Wave The Flag, Wave The Bible, Wave Your Sex Or Your Business Degree, Whatever You Want, Just Don't Wave That Thing At Me.

There Are So Many People I Love In The United States, And I've Had Such Great Adventures In This Country And Have Been So Well Received By People Here.

Beautiful Rocks - Beautiful Grass Beautiful Soil Where They Both Combine Beautiful River - Covering Sky Never Thought Of Possession, But All This Was Mine.

There's Roads, And There's Roads, And They Call. Can't You Hear It? Roads Of The Earth And Roads Of The Spirit The Best Roads Of All Are The Ones That Aren't Certain. One Of Those Is Where You'll Find Me 'til They Drop The Big Curtain.

I Can't Imagine My Life Any Other Way Than It's Been.

I Did A Lot Of Writing For A Lot Of Different Kinds Of Bands That I Was In And Out Of During Those Five Years And That Left Me With A Little Body Of Songs That I Liked Better When I Played Alone, So I Ended Up Going Out Solo And Very Soon Made My First Album.

The Invitation For Artists To Compete To See Who Can Be The Most Charitable Is A Wonderful Thing.

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.

The Trouble With Normal Is It Only Gets Worse.

But Nothing Worth Having Comes Without Some Kind Of Fight / Got To Kick At The Darkness 'til It Bleeds Daylight.

Gotta Kick At The Darkness Til It Bleeds Daylight.

Resisting The Powers That Be, We Are Keeping Things From Getting Worse Than They Otherwise Might Be. And That Effort Is Very Much Worthwhile.

Water Of Life Is Gonna Flow Again/changed From The Blood Of Heroes And Knaves/word Mercy's Gonna Have A New Meaning/ When We Are Judged By The Children Of Our Slaves.

Once You Tie Anger And Ego Together Then You're A Monster, At Least A Latent One. So You Have To Be Able To Separate Those Things Before You Are Going To Be Able To Do Anything Useful With Your Anger.

When You Know Even For A Moment That It's Your Time Then You Can Walk With The Power Of A Thousand Generations

I've Been Accused Of Being A Little Pedantic Here And There, But I Don't Buy That Criticism. I'm Telling It Like I See It. You Don't Have To Buy It. You Don't Have To Like It. You Don't Have To Listen To It At All. I'm Not Trying To Convince People Of Things, Other Than The Fact That I'm Trying To Make As Vivid As I Can My Own Feelings And Experiences.

I'd Always Loved Poetry And I'd Always Loved Writing Music And Composing Music, But I Hadn't Thought Of Putting The Two Together Until Around That Time.

We All Grow Up With Anger. It's Part Of The Human Condition. But What Do You Do With That? It Seems Obvious To Me That You've Got To Use It For Something, But You Have To Separate It From Your Ego.

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