James Attlee interviewed one of the best songwriters of the past two decades BRUCE COCKBURN.

"No, basically I don't. It's positive in context, but that's the tragedy of it all. People who are victimised by the system are forced not only to live in less than desirable conditions, but when they recognise what's making them live like that, they're forced to adopt a world view that's hostile to somebody, which is a spiritual waste of time. The same with violence. I'm not sure that it's necessary but it seems to be inevitable when you get enough of that rage - forgivable, but that doesn't make it more desirable."

Your song "Rocket Launcher" contains the chorus "If I had a rocket launcher, I would not hesitate". Were you then just recording your emotions on visiting Guatemalan refugee camps, rather than saying that's an acceptable way to feel?

"Exactly. I wrote the song because I felt that way, and afterwards! thought 'I wonder if I should actually put this song out", because people might not understand it. As it turned out most people did...mind you, I spent a lot of time in shows the first year it was out explaining the song before I did it!

"1 got that feeling of impotent rage again when I was in Nepal recently - not with that intensity - but to see people in villages where there's a whole district without a doctor, while the government and the King and his courtiers are rolling in money...would they spend a couple of hundred bucks to keep a doctor in every district - no! It's ridiculous, and you're there, and there's this father with his little girl dying in his arms...it doesn't make sense. Well, tragically it does make sense, but it makes you want to take someone and give them a good shaking."

Do you believe that evil lies behind all this?

"In a confused kind of way I guess 1 do. I'm not quite sure what that means. There are a lot of things that are permitted to happen and they are the consequence of something, something large...but I'm not quite sure if 1 believe in evil as an active force, I guess I don't. I have initially adopted C.S. Lewis' concept of it as an absence of good, an absence rather than an active force - but now I'm not sure if that's really on the mark, it seems to me that people who ally themselves to what we think of as evil are like deadheads stuck in a river - they're resisting the flow of things. To me the universe is unfolding according to God's will in a basically loving way, and there are certain of us who seem to feel obliged to resist that movement and to put ourselves in opposition to it and it only crushes us. People who die as a victim of these things - their suffering is a tragedy...the suffering of the parents of children who die of malnutrition and the friends and relatives of people killed by oppressive regimes. It's terrible - but the dead people are not the ones who are suffering anymore, they've gone on to whatever we go on to. In the end I don't think any of it means much of anything it's just tragic because so much offering gets thrown around and it's not productive of anything, even of furthering its own ends in the long run."

What are your plans after your year off the road?

"Ninety-one will see a new studio album out at some point, and during that year we'll be touring again."

Would you take the same band out with you again? Judging by the live album they certainly did the business.
"Probably not - my personal band are people I've worked with before. Fergus (Jemison Marsh, stick player) has been with me since '83 when we started putting together the 'Steel And Fire' album, and Mike (Sloski, drums) has worked with me for a couple of years now. They've played most of the songs before in different ways, because when we went out as a trio we had to change the arrangements a lot."

It must have stretched you a bit, playing as a three piece?

"It was fun, I liked that - whatever future band I have will be simple - at least, if not that small, maybe a quartet or something, to make sure there's room for everything."

Your songs are very complex lyrically - is it hard to remember the sheer volume of words in a song like "Silver Wheels" for instance?

"It's a pain in the neck! But I keep doing it to myself...it's hard not only to remember the words but to present the songs - there's a lot of stuff to think about at once. Sometimes I wish I was just the guitar player and could just get into the music."

Talking of guitars, there seems to be a West African feel to some of your playing these days.