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Stealing Fire | 
 enlarge | Artist: Bruce Cockburn
Label: Rounder / Umgd
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $11.50
You Save: $6.48 (36%)
New (6) Used (2) from $11.47
Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 71640
Format: Extra Tracks, Original Recording Reissued, Original Recording Remastered
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 613213
UPC: 011661321328
EAN: 0011661321328
ASIN: B0000CERLJ
Release Date: October 7, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Lovers in a Dangerous Time | | • | Maybe the Poet | | • | Sahara Gold | | • | Making Contact | | • | Peggy's Kitchen Wall | | • | To Raise the Morning Star | | • | Nicaragua | | • | If I Had a Rocket Launcher | | • | Dust and Diesel | | • | Yanqui Go Home | | • | Call It the Sundance |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Album Description
With 1984's Stealing Fire, Bruce Cockburn's words and music took on a greater urgency than ever before. The previous year, he made his first trip to Central America on behalf of the international development group OXFAM. While in southern Mexico, he visited a refugee camp that had recently been attacked by the helicopters of the U.S.-backed Guatemalan Army. The horrific experience sparked the anger-filled "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," a song which brought him unprecedented attention--garnering heavy radio airplay and regular video rotation on MTV. Stealing Fire is full of many of Cockburn's most powerful political songs, yet it boasts some of his most romantic numbers as well. From "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" to "Making Contact," whether issuing calls to action or cries for help, Bruce Cockburn's poetry demands attention. Upon its release Stealing Fire immediately staked a claim as one of the most compelling albums by any singer-songwriter in the 1980s. Nearly twenty years later, the album's impact isy remastered for CD, features Leon Redbone in top form on a stellar collection of chestnuts and originals. Supporting Leon is a star-studded ensemble including Howard Alden, David Bromberg, Vince Giordano, Eric Weissberg and the Roches, with a special guest appearance by Hank Williams, Jr.
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| Customer Reviews:
Just an additional thought or two November 4, 2008
paul pirate (New York, New York)
I've loved this album since it came out, and my reviewing colleagues have brought out what is special about this album. This was the period where Bruce balanced religion, politics, humanity, tunes, and excellent arrangements perfectly. I'd add that this is not only a very political and romantic album, but that it is a love song to a dream or two, and a fine one to boot.
I saw Bruce live solo at the Bitter End in NYC around this time (does anyone remember when this was?). Before performing this song, he rather shyly wanted to be sure that we Americans wouldn't be offended by it. I don't know if this was before the Reagan faschisti killed his visa (didn't know about that story!); but in any case, we dirty little NYC leftists cheered him on and were rewarded with a smile and a gutty performance.
Bruce seems to bother those not inclined toward Christian evangelism; when he gets too literal, I look to the heart and the music for my enjoyment (if those are missing, though, I am disappointed). This would seem to be even truer among the Canadian audience than in the U.S., or am I wrong? Anyway, it beats the "philosophy" of sexism, violence, and drug-induced states, generally. And this album keeps everything in proportion.
By the way, it would be nice if the editors of these pages deleted the last two sentences of the Amazon.com review. I have tried to get my mind around morphing Bruce into Leon, but I don't think so, as they say....
Simply the best! May 3, 2007
Stanley B. Dow (Norman, Oklahoma)
This album is one of the best albums on my short list of so far all time. Dancing In The Dragon's Jaw is there along with a few others in rarified air. This is Bruce Cockburn at his peak and a fantastic concept ablum. This is worth every cent and more and it is this kind of writing that has helped to change my life for the Better! Buy this if you love well written poetic melodic beautiful music.
The Finest Album From A Righteous Folk-Rocker October 1, 2006
The Footpath Cowboy (Kingston, NY United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
STEALING FIRE is the finest album that Bruce Cockburn ever released. The reason I'd wear a T-shirt with this album cover more readily than any featuring his other album covers for a chance to meet my favorite actresses, or on a first date with a girl I'd recently met, is not because of the views expressed, many of which I strongly support, but because of how he expresses them here as opposed to on his other albums. Rather than just go for polemics and broadsides, Cockburn actually describes how the situations being discussed in the songs affect individuals. Prime examples include a song about romance under the most difficult circumstances ("Lovers In A Dangerous Time"), and one about a personal desire for revenge vs. passionate pacifism ("If I Had A Rocket Launcher"), in response to U.S.-funded dictatorships in Latin America. Cockburn's belief that the young Australian tourist jailed in Indonesia since 2005 for drug-smuggling was unjustly convicted makes STEALING FIRE an essential purchase for both your ears AND your conscience, as well as making it perfectly normal for a young man to want to wear the album-cover T-shirt to impress a cute girl.
Kick at the Darkness Till It Bleeds Daylight September 27, 2004
Tim Brough (Springfield, PA United States)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
How many artists do you know that U2 quotes in their songs? That line, from Cockburn's "Lovers In A Dangerous Time," eventually made its way into the U2 canon ("God Pt 2"). But it belongs to Cockburn, and is on this, his most perfectly politically charged album. The song "Nicaragua" sounded close enough to sympathizing with the rebels that it even found Cockburn under fire from the Reagan Administration. But it was the naked fury of "If I Had A Rocket Launcher" that drives the point home. The frustration and helplessness fueling the rage that would make a person declare "if I had a rocket launcher, some sonofab*#ch would die" is universal, and it gave Cockburn one of his best known songs.
The compositions on "Stealing Fire" were inspired by Cockburn's fact finding trek with OXFAM through Mexico and Latin America, and they put the face on the political turmoil of the region at that time. "Peggy's Kitchen Wall" nakedly shows the true scope of what warring governments would rather have you not see, and "Sahara Gold" paints a shimmering portrait of the region. Cockburn's always had a fine eye for detail, and that shows in both "Gold" and in "Dust and Diesel" (the original album closer).
In 1984, only Peter Gabriel and U2 were making statements as grand as Cockburn's "Stealing Fire," and outside of The Clash, there has never been an anti-war statement as anger-filled as "Rocket Launcher." Twenty years later, "Stealing Fire" still burns with the sound of the truth.
(PS - the bonus tracks, after the graceful mix of the original album, sound forced and didactic. Once again, proof that some unreleased songs should stay that way.)
buy this!!!!! July 3, 2004
slook (St. Catharines, Ontario Canada)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This is probably Bruce's best cd. Beautifuly written and not one bad song. Some latin influenced songs such as Nicaragua, Making Contact(makes you feel like doing the Samba Dance)and Dust and Diesel. Great lyrics on this album which also has Bruce's great sense of humour(smiling girl directing traffic
flow,
45 strapped over cotton print dress,
marimba brown and graceful limbs,
give me a moment of loneliness.
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