Bruce Cockburn -
Breakfast in New Orleans,
Dinner in Timbuktu

Cockburn's Latest Travel Journal
Tangents and, Occasionally, Triumphs

Breakfast in New Orleans, Dinner in Timbuktu finds Bruce Cockburn relying on his strengths and taking a breather from the dark imagery and intense subject matter of 1997's The Charity of Night. This album has a lighter tone, rather like the mix of blues, folk, and rock on 1992's Nothing But a Burning Light.  Cockburn's songs have always been a travel journal.  This collection of songs evidences that, spurred by conversations he's had along the road, relationships that flourished or suffered, books he read, mysteries he contemplated.  And like any road trip, there are moments of memorable wonder, and there are forgettable detours that don't pan out.

Musically, Breakfast is whimsical, warm, jazzy, and explorative. There's a bit of Paul Simon's Graceland mixed with the haunting spirit of the music of Cowboy Junkies.  In fact, the Junkies' own Margot Timmins lends her silky vocals to a couple of tracks, and proves to be the best vocal partner yet for Cockburn.  I suspect he thinks so too; he actually hands her the spotlight during a glorious rendition of "Blueberry Hill" (Cockburn's first cover!) Then he steps in to do some steamy electric soloing.  Fans of his brilliant live performances will be happy to hear some of the soaring spontaneous genius that rarely comes through on Cockburn's restrained recordings. But for the most part, this is an acoustic guitar venture, with the edges filled in with enthusiastic rhythms. 

The lyrical diary covers a broad range of topics, avoiding his trademark political commentaries.  There are copious references to specific places and times, to views from windows and rooftops, to conversations...even what was playing on the radio at the moment, such as "Superchunk, and the Friends of Dean Martinez." There is standard (and thus excellent) Cockburn fare like "Last Night of the World," which reminds me of the simple melody of "Dream Like Mine." And then there are more ambitious tracks, like the long poem of "Use Me While You Can", a prayer in a haunted desert.  Perhaps his most sonically experimental track thus far in his career--"Let the Bad Air Out"--may sound familiar.  He has played this song on tour frequently over the past few years.  Here, instead of taking that tongue-in-cheek rock-n-roll approach, he paints it as a dreamy, complicated, jazzy number with overlays of whispers and screams...interesting and strange. 

Several songs feature spoken-word passages, which he rediscovered on Charity of Night.  This method does not serve him so well here.  There are some shining moments.  In the bright and hopeful "Look How Far" he recites,  "So many miles, so many doors/ Some need patience, some need force/ All fall open in their own due course...."  But there are some verses that could have used a revision.  "Isn't That What Friends Are For?", which sounds like a cousin to Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up", is dour where it should be bright and longwinded when less could have been more. Read this out loud: "I've been scraping little shavings off my ration of light/ And I formed it into a ball, and each time I pack a bit more on to it/ I make a bowl of my hands and I scoop it from its secret cache under a loose board in the floor/ And I blow across it and I send it to you/ Against those moments when the darkness blows under your door."   If I may borrow an expletive from Kermit the Frog... sheesh!  That's a wordy metaphor to present a simple idea!  Sometimes a lyric sounds brilliant when you write it, and the next day you wonder what you liked about it.  This album's love song also falls a little flat--"Mango", which he calls his hymn to feminine sexuality, is filled with poetry that sounds like a sophomore's first attempt at erotic poetry, with its "hot" atmosphere and its "glistening gate."  It doesn't hold a candle to past romantic interludes like "One of the Best Ones" on "Nothing But a Burning Light."

Weak points aside, there are powerful themes at work, and familiar ones at that.  "The Embers of Eden" sees connections between the deterioration of the environment and the deterioration of a relationship.  Some songs deal how the joy of relationships can reveal hope while the world around seems to be burning and collapsing.  "Friendship a fine silver web/ Stretched across golden smoky haze/ And this is simple/ And this is grace." 

Still, while artists like Sting seem to have lost their gift for invention and transcendence along the way, Cockburn is still increasing his range and challenging his own standards.  He's not resting on his laurels.  He sounds renewed, refreshed, even younger, slower to anger, and like he's really enjoying what he's doing. That's good. I sure enjoy what he's doing.  Breakfast in New Orleans has enough moments of musical brilliance to merit repeated listenings.  It brings to mind how God's grace remains available to us, even when life seems unbearably dark.