World of Wonders

I discovered Bruce Cockburn during the 'Wondering Where The Lions Are' period, and became a quick fan, which has only grown over the years... Trouble was, back in 1979, it was difficult to find the Canadian Brooce's albums in an American record store (record store, what's THAT?!). Eventually I wrote his publicist (The phone number conveniently found in the gatefold of one of his old LPs), and was kindly led to an importer who could 'catch me up' to Bruce's 'True North' output. This was around 1981. It's been a long strange wonderful trip over the years, I've met Bruce a few times now... Nicest of guys! When 'World Of Wonders' came out, I saw Bruce's show for the album at UCLA: He played a 3 1/2 hour solo show, ...eventually ran out of songs he could think of off the top of his head, and asked the audience for ideas (!). A most amazing show. World Of Wonders is a fantastic album, one of his most politically minded. 'Berlin Tonight' is eerily evocative of the pre-Soviet era Berlin, the lyrics ring like a Dali painting, the sonics move in sheets like the northern lights. Bruce plays the Charango on a couple of tunes (The only album in which he visits this instrument), which gave him a backdrop for some of his more outre poetry... World Of Wonders certainly delivers bang for your buck (At $8.91 it's a steal!). It captures our liberal-minded hero during the days of Reaganomics and the Iran Contra mess... The man is a poet and a sage, his instrumental prowess is unequalled out there. I love this album. Certainly worth your time. Earl Grey

* Now if you ask me, and quite a few perceptive individuals do on a frighteningly regular basis, then this here Bruce Cockburn album represents his output at the tail end of a strong songwriting period and was about to usher in a period that appears to have been rather dry for our Canadian friend. Big Circumstance followed this one two years later and feels a bit like Mr. Cockburn was flatfooted at the time, but World of Wonders captured a group of tunes that are obviously born of creative juices that were in a rolling boil. * "Call it Democracy" is one of them tunes where he manages to slip yet another naughty word in and, truth be node, it kind of fits. In fact, it drives home the point he's attempting to make (and it maintains the rhyming lyrics to boot). Mama gets kind of flustered when he keeps putting out records what have them naughty words on them, but they are selectively sprinkled and add a certain degree of spice. Kind of like when you have eggs in the morning and you put just a couple drops of Tabasco® Sauce. There ain't many folk on the street who know who Bruce Cockburn is, but when you find one who does they inevitably know "Wondering Where the Lions Are," and probably "If I had a Rocket Launcher," and if by chance they know of a third song, then this is the one. He's released eleventy hundred good songs, but this is the extent of what the bulk of the herd knows. * Trouble With Normal, Stealing Fire, and World Of Wonders were Bruce Cockburn's early 80s trilogy of political albums. They captured a period in which he was writing songs that addressed the disparity betwixt the haves and the have nots. He went on to other things after that and has been exploring several other themes in subsequent albums, but them three really struck at the root of the inequity situation the world sees itself in. If you don't like the stark reality of the pain of inequity, then maybe you'd better give this one a miss, however if you are comfortable with the Bruce Cockburn style of calling a spade a spade and not mamby pambying around with difficult ort uncomfortable subject matter, then this one is yet another gem of an album. * As I said earlier, Mama don't like this one too much because he uses another (single) naughty word, but Junior and the twins love this album because each time that song comes on they hush up and get ready for him to say it and then when he does, they fall in the floor with peels of laughter and side-splittin' laugh-educed convulsions of sheer joy. See, we Huckabees don't allow that kind of talk inside the double wide trailer, but make an exception to Bruce Cockburn because we like his music pretty good no matter what album it's from or what profanity he deems fit to record. * I say this is one of his best, even though it took a few years for me to get to this point. Looking back no I might even say it's up near my favorite.