SONGS:
-- Creation Dream --
20 December 1978. Ottawa, Canada.


Found on:

Dancing In The Dragon's Jaws (1979) & (2002)

Rumours of Glory (1985) [compilation album]

Rumours of Glory - box set Disc 1 (2014) [compilation album]
Lyrics:

Centred on silence
Counting on nothing
I saw you standing on the sea
And everything was
Dark except for
Sparks the wind struck from your hair
Sparks that turned to
Wings around you
Angel voices mixed with seabird cries
Fields of motion
Surging outward
Questions that contain their own replies...

You were dancing
I saw you dancing
Throwing your arms toward the sky
Fingers opening
Like flares
Stars were shooting everywhere
Lines of power
Bursting outward
Along the channels of your song
Mercury waves flashed
Under your feet
Shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn...



Known comments by Bruce Cockburn about this song, by date:

  • 30 August 1979:

    "Seems as though that I've always kind of felt that artists of any kind were saddled with a fairly serious responsibility to be fairly careful of what they put in their art in the sense that....it has such a capacity for influencing people, in the subtle ways maybe not in obvious ways, like you don't, you know, change the world by writing songs or painting paintings but.... in a deep kind of subtle way it has an effect on large numbers of people. And therefore, an artist, especially an artist with religious convictions, has to pay kind of close attention to what it is they are saying in their art. What they are influencing people to do. The way that sort of manifests itself in the writing of songs for me is it.....well one way anyway is that I have to kind of look at the songs from the point of view, when they are done, you know, from the point of view of whether or not that what's being said is true. And true for me has a lot to do with whether it coincides, you know, at least in some subtle way, with scripture. I don't see myself as particularly involved with, writing gospel songs, as such. But when I do write a song I kind of look at it and go "well is that, it that right or isn't it". This is a song that I wrestled with for a while before I decided that in the context of this particular song it really didn't matter. It's called Creation Dream. It's another new one. It's, well it's just that, a dream. A fictional rendering of the creation. Not to be confused with Genesis....."
    -- transcribed from a live taping of a concert in Hastings Lake, Alberta, Canada, August 30, 1979. Transcribed by Doug Stacey.


  • 1986:

    "Maybe one of my more successful attempts at putting guitar and words together - a sort of vision of Christ singing the universe into being- dawn before the parting of the waters."
    -- from "All The Diamonds" songbook, edited by Arthur McGregor, OFC Publications 1986. Submitted by Rob Caldwell.


  • Spring 1993

    James Jensen: Before we leave that album "Creation Dream" is a favorite of mine do you still play it?

    BC: Yeah, I still play it cause it's fun to play and sort of dramatic and relatively easy to execute as those type of things go. It also doesn't have as many words as "Tibetan Side Of Town" so it suits the live situation well although I do that one live as well.
    -- from an Interview by James Jensen at Sunset Sound, Los Angeles, circa Spring 1993.


  • Help out! To add material to this section, see this page first.




    Song Index | Alphabetical Song Index | Chronological Song Index

    This page is part of The Cockburn Project, a unique website that exists to document the work of Canadian singer-songwriter and musician Bruce Cockburn. The Project archives self-commentary by Cockburn on his songs and music, and supplements this core part of the website with news, tour dates, and other current information.