Cockburn returns to studio as lyrical drought subsides
Folksinger Bruce Cockburn didn’t think he’d ever write another song.
After four years dedicated to writing his 2015 memoir, Rumours of Glory, he found he had few words left for lyrics.
“There was no songwriting because it was all about prose,” he said in a recent interview.
“Any ideas I had — or creative juices flowing — went in that direction.”
But Cockburn did start laying the foundation for his forthcoming 25th studio album earlier this year. Sifting through ideas took some time, but eventually, rough concepts were shaped and the lyrical drought began to subside.
“Songs started to come,” he said. “And they’ve been coming steadily ever since.”
Cockburn, a 12-time Juno winner and Canadian Music Hall of Fame inductee, is now in the early stages of recording his still-untitled album, which he hopes to release next year.
He’ll be in the spotlight on Saturday when he takes the stage at the Canadian Folk Music Awards in Toronto for the first time ever. It’s a warm up of sorts for the inevitable tour dates tied to his next album.
Cockburn, whose career is defined by folk favourites like If I Had a Rocket Launcher, Lovers in a Dangerous Time and Pacing the Cage, is a three-time Canadian Folk Music Award winner. But, he says, this year his schedule finally allowed him to perform.
Other performers at this year’s awards show include The Ennis Sisters, Sultans of String and Colin Linden, a longtime producer on Cockburn’s albums.
After the show, the two musicians plan to jet off to Nashville, where they’ll smooth out parts of the new album. Cockburn is pushing to finish the project by mid-January.