@ALBUM: 79.dancing.in.the.dragons.jaws Author: Bruce Cockburn ALBUM title: Dancing in the Dragon's Jaws (1979) TN-37 Total Duration: 36:44 (8 tracks) @SONG: Creation Dream (4:02) centred on silence counting on nothing i saw you standing on the sea and everything was dark except for sparks the wind struck from your hair sparks that turned to wings around you angel voices mixed with seabird cries fields of motion surging outward questions that contain their own replies... you were dancing i saw you dancing throwing your arms toward the sky fingers opening like flares stars were shooting everywhere lines of power bursting outward along the channels of your song mercury waves flashed under your feet shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn... (Ottawa 20/12/78) @SONG: Hills Of Morning (4:30) underneath the mask of the sulphur sky a bunch of us were busy waiting, watching the people looking ill-at-ease, watching the fraying rope get closer to breaking. Women and men moved back and forth in between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws Let me be a little of your breath moving over the face of the deep -- i want to be a particle of your light flowing over the hills of morning. The only sign you gave of who you were when you first came walking down the road, was the way the dust motes danced around your feet in a cloud of gold. But everything you see's not the way it seems -- tears can sing and joy shed tears. You can take the wisdom of this world and give it to the ones who think it all ends here! Let me be a little of your breath moving over the face of the deep -- i want to be a particle of your light flowing over the hills of morning. @SONG: Badlands Flashback (6:16) mon corps se pence, ma main s'entends, prends du gravier un morcean blanc de coquille. pour un instant un mugissement; l'antique mer rempli cet espace qui a ete le mien. lozanges mobiles, des herbes flottantes; un cri soudain d'oiseau flamboie au firmament! * * * une troupe d'antilopes traverse l'horizon, sabots scintillants comme du verre un rire sonne comme le cristal dans le ciel vide -- quelqu'un danse comme une flamme! (Ottawa -- Paques 79) TRANSLATION: "Badlands Flashback" the body stoops, the hand goes out, picks up from the gravel a fragment of white seashell for a moment a roaring; the ancient sea fills the space that just now was mine moving diamond-shapes, grasses flowing; the sudden cry of a bird blazes all along the sky! * * * a herd of antelope crosses the horizon hooves scintillating like glass. a laugh rings like crystal in the empty sky -- someone is dancing like a flame! (Ottawa -- Easter 79) @SONG: Northern Lights (4:10) Sunday night and it's half past nine (3x) I'm leaving one more town behind. Mirrors are showing the day's last glow (3x) as we're spit out into the jigsaw flow. Ahead where there should be the thickness of night star are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light. Sky full of rippling cliffs and chasms that shine like signs on the road to heaven... * * * I've been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains and cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God. So i carry these scars, precious and rare, and tonight i feel like i'm made of air... (Calgary-Medicine Hat 27/8/78) @SONG: After the Rain (4:00) After rain in the streets light flows like blood -- I can just taste salt on the humid wind. Here comes that gasoline spreading hungry rainbow over shiny black tar. I'm blown like smoke and blind as wind except for when your love breaks in. Maybe to those who love is given sight to pierce the wall of seeming night and know it pure beyond all imagining. Engine throb street cruise light bullet car flash hollow beauty night gleam oily river tension glass... Ultraflame! glittering dust falling in slow motion -- clouds tumbling one over another into apparent emptiness. It's like a big fist breaking down my door -- I never felt such a love before! Maybe to those who love it's given to hear music too high for the human ear and clear as hydrogen to go singing. (Toronto -- 13/6/79) @SONG: Wondering Where the Lions Are (3:42) Sun's up, uuh huh, looks okay the world survives into another day and i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. I had another dream about lions at the door they weren't half as frightening as they were before but i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. Walls windows trees, waves coming through you be in me and i'll be in you together in eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me Up among the firs where it smells so sweet or down in the valley where the river used to be i got my mind on eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake, thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take, pointing a finger at eternity i'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun, polished as precise like the brain behind the gun (should be!) they got me thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay One of these days we're going to sail away, going to sail into eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... (Ottawa -- 12/1/79) @SONG: Incandescent Blue (4:39) I sneaked across the border -- it was threatening rain -- so i could stand in this tunnel, waiting for the roaring train and watch those black kids working out Kung fu moves. If you don't want to be the horses' hoofprints you got to be the hooves. Hear that lonesome violin play. See the notes float up into the overcast and change to white birds as they sail on through and soar away free into incandescent blue. People getting ready behind all those rectangles of light "Put on your grin mask, babe, you know we're steppin out tonight" You hear that sound, like hammers only small? It's what the people's heads say when they beat them against the wall. Hear that lonesome violin play. See the notes float up into the overcast and change to white birds as they sail on through and soar away free into incandescent blue. Concrete vortex sucks down the wind; It's howling like a blinded violin. Oh -- Tongues of Fire, come and kiss my brow if i ever needed you, well i need you now! Hear that lonesome violin play. See the notes float up into the overcast and change to white birds as they sail on through and soar away free into incandescent blue. (New York --) @SONG: No Footprints (5:25) mist hangs above hills above mist hangs stone face of mountain above mountain face hangs a net of sky -- crack! there are wings and they rip the net! and the Dance flows on everything flows toward the rim of that shining Cup crossed sticks lie on earth between crossed sticks -- pile of ash something rises on the wisp of smoke dog's feet move by fast and the Dance flows on everything flows toward the rim of that shining Cup through these channels/words i want to touch you touch you deep down where you live not for power but because i love you so love the Lord and in Him love me too and in Him go your way and i'll be right there with you leaving no footprints when we go no footprints when we go only where we've been, a faint and fading glow... (mainly Banff 19/7/78)