Bruce Cockburn: The Rose Above the Sky

Andy Whitman has a thoughtful post on the loss of things on the Image blog. He talks about the loss of jobs, marriages, life, and relates it to the music of Bruce Cockburn, in particular the song, "The Rose Above the Sky" form the Humans album. He states of a friend who lost a business this uear:

It’s a bittersweet little melodrama I’ve seen re-enacted again and again in the past year; the end of longstanding good. And it doesn’t stop with employment woes. 2009 will mercifully end in a couple months. Auld lang syne, and good riddance.

He says of Cockburn's music:

In times like these—in most times, in fact—I listen to Bruce Cockburn and pray. I pray because I don’t know how else to process life, and because I figure that God would prefer that I moan and complain to Him rather than ignore Him and try to tough it out on my own.

And I listen to Bruce Cockburn because, more than any other songwriter I know, he seems to grasp the connection between the invisible hand of love and the all too visible scars of a messy life. Cockburn is a mystic with dirt under his finger nails, and I’ve listened to his beautifully poetic songs for 35 years now. And if he holds out for meaning, for answers, for beauty in the end—and he does—he is equally insistent that the sorrow and pain are real, and cannot be glibly explained away. These are redemption songs that ache.

I think I bought my first Bruce Cockburn album in 1982, so I have enjoyed his music and take on life for many years. You can listen to "Rose Above the Sky" here.


Lyrics:

Something jewelled slips away


Round the next bend with a splash

Laughing at the hands I hold out

Only air within their grasp

All you can do is praise the razor

For the fineness of the slash


'Til the Rose above the sky

Opens

And the light behind the sun

Takes all


Gutless arrogance and rage

Burn apart the best of tries

You carry the weight of inherited sorrow

From your first day till you die

Toward that hilltop where the road

Forever becomes one with the sky


'Til the Rose above the sky

Opens

And the light behind the sun

Takes all


Ozone on the midnight wind

Got me thinking of the sea

And the mercies of the currents that brought

Me to you and you to me

And in the silence at the heart of things

Where all true meetings come to be


'Til the Rose above the sky

Opens

And the light behind the sun

Takes all

Here is a video of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" with the great line "Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight" which U2 echoed in "God part 2" with "Heard a singer on the radio late last night. He says he's gonna kick the darkness.Till it bleeds daylight."




LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS TIME



Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by

You never get to stop and open your eyes

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall

And next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all

When you're lovers in a dangerous time

Lovers in a dangerous time



These fragile bodies of touch and taste

This vibrant skin this hair like lace

Spirits open to the thrust of grace

Never a breath you can afford to waste



When you're lovers in a dangerous time

Lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time

Lovers in a dangerous time



When you're lovers in a dangerous time

Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime

Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight

Got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight



When you're lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time

When you're lovers in a dangerous time

Lovers in a dangerous time