SONGS:
-- Maybe The Poet --
January 1982. Toronto, Canada.

Found on:

Stealing Fire (1984)
Bruce Cockburn Live (1990) & (2002) [live album]
Lyrics:

Maybe the poet is gay
But he'll be heard anyway

Maybe the poet is drugged
But he won't stay under the rug

Maybe the voice of the spirit
In which case you'd better hear it

Maybe he's a woman
Who can touch you where you're human

Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see

Don't let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it

Put him up against the wall
Shoot him up with pentothal

Shoot him up with lead
You won't call back what's been said
Put him in the ground
But one day you'll look around

There'll be a face you don't know
Voicing thoughts you've heard before

Male female slave or free
Peaceful or disorderly
Maybe you and he will not agree
But you need him to show you new ways to see

Don't let the system fool you
All it wants to do is rule you
Pay attention to the poet
You need him and you know it



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

  • 1990 - "Fergus and I were fooling around with that song before the tour started. Of course we had to work out how we were going to do these songs in a trio format, what, what we could do with the Stick and the guitar to make it work, and maybe the poet was a song that I wanted to do but the original version of it didn't work and so what were we going to do with it and we were sitting around trying this and trying that and I forget which one of us came up with the idea of trying a certain ska version of it but, um, actually I think it was both of us because Fergus started playing a rhythm on the Stick and then that suggested the ska rhythm on the guitar and I tried singing the song over top of that and it worked, so all of a sudden we had a whole new version of that song." - from "Interview and Segments" a CD released in 1990 by True North/Epic. Anonymous submission.


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    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.