Canadian singer/guitarist Bruce Cockburn (pronounced CO-burn) has had the kind of career that is enviable from a critical standpoint and somewhat regrettable from a popular one. That is, Cockburn’s memorable, intelligent songs have been praised over and over in the music magazines, but after decades of doing this, he’s still not that well-known to the public.
Here’s a terrific introduction: Anything Anytime Anywhere, a collection of sixteen singles recorded over a twenty-three-year time span. They include “Tokyo,” a beautiful, searching piece set in that city; Cockburn has referred to this song as a sort of audio version of a film – “a kind of documentary-style thing,” he said in a 1992 interview with Goldmine magazine “structured like a little movie. 'Tokyo' is like that … where you try and set up these little scenes that relate to each other …” Indeed, the first verse captures the feel of the huge city and describes the situation at hand perfectly. The speaker is witness to the aftermath of a terrible car accident: “They're getting prepared to haul a car out of the river / Noise and smoke and concrete seem to be going on forever / Grinding gears and drivers getting high on exhaust / I'm thinking about the water down below and what got lost.” Also on this CD: Socially conscious songs such as the incendiary “If I Had a Rocket Launcher” and more personal reflections, including the lovely, acoustic-guitar-driven “Pacing the Cage.”