Bruce Cockburn - “Lovers in a Dangerous Time”
I’m going to place you somewhere between June 2013 and June 2014. We’re at my apartment above a garage in Byrnes Down with the shortest little bathtub (I can’t sit with my legs all the way out). I have an enamel plaque on the sink (that’s still by my sink) that says, “What good shall I do this day?” and a penciled drawing of Padgett Thomas barracks framed in my bathroom. A love interest — the love interest — sent me this song. I suspect it was first as a Barenaked Ladies cover. It has a brooding melancholy to it, likely the 80’s production and synths. Something about that sound emotionally resonates with me on such a deep primal level that I connect more deeply with than any other era/genre (see also: “The Valley Road” - Bruce Hornsby).
So, I’m in that tub, thinking about the love interest with the track playing. Weirdly, the two songs I remember from that tub/shower are joyously singing Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step” in the shower and this one sitting in the tub. Very different vibes. Bobby Brown with his New Jack Swing and joy — and Bruce with the melancholy 80’s queueing up alllll the introspection.
One day you're waiting for the sky to fall / The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all” — I keep turning the knobs and just can’t get the temperature right. There’s the hot water, the exhilarating thrill of feeling connected — like maybe she harbors the same conviction that we’re meant to be together. Then the douse of cold water comes: a plan talked about but not executed, a picture of her happy with someone else, or a message sent and not replied to for what feels like an eternity. If I could pull myself above/out of the situation, there really is a dazzling beauty to this push and pull. Leaving the tub and trekking to my journal from the same time period (road trip May ‘13 most likely):
“Not sure when I’ve felt more alive than being on the open road alone. As I grow older, I’m starting to find beauty in solitude that was never comfortable before. I catch myself thinking of her every time I see a film with a scene about the depth of love between two characters. I find myself enjoying the idea of being a single guy and liking dating, but I need to refine my game. I keep dating/liking hipsters; I’m probably too square for that. Or girls that don’t sleep outside.”
What’s happening here is a fella still deeply in love with a lady, trying to convince himself that he enjoys dating but subconsciously comparing the women he’s been out with — they made him feel less cool than he’s convinced he is, and they don’t dig camping. Who was it that made him feel like the coolest guy in the world and also loved camping?
“Got to kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight” — a line so good, Bono referenced it in his own lyrics. It felt like for every obstacle I was seeing or feeling in those days, with enough commitment, “we” could find a way. I love the verb “bleed” daylight, as though the darkness was holding it hostage, giving it up only when bloody and bruised. It felt worth fighting for “us” — and I loved the notion of it.
One thing about musical memories… they’re snapshots in time. For the purpose of ascribing meaning to the song from how it struck me at a particular point — and its ability to transport me there, simply by repeating the same sequence of notes on treble clef — it doesn’t matter how the story continued beyond those 4 minutes and 8 seconds. For the duration of the track, we never move in space-time past me living on my own, with plenty of time to act, think, and reflect uninterrupted. We never move past me wondering where life will take me. And we still have the utter conviction in the broad strokes of how the story ends, but don’t know the chapters in between.
I like time-traveling with this song and was delighted to find the album in a record store years ago. That day in my apartment wasn’t the only time in life I felt dazzled by the beauty of it all while also waiting for the sky to fall — but it was one of the most distinct. It’s comforting sometimes to be able to sit alongside your past self and say, “ahhhh, we’ve been here before, haven’t we?!”
