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

Some people would maintain that the church has the same problem, with creative people squeezed to the sidelines and the pragmatists firmly in control...

"I don't know too much about who's in power in the church at the moment, other than high profile characters like the Pope, who doesn't strike me as the artistic type, even if he has got a book of poetry out and it's not bad...although it's got one of the worst covers I've ever seen on a book, it's the crassest looking paperback."

You once said that the North American evangelical church was inseparable from right-wing politics. Would you stand by that statement today?

"Well, they associate themselves with that - I don't know. If we say inseparable it maybe implies that it can't be otherwise, and I'm not sure that that's true. It just happens that the leaders of that movement - the high profile TV preachers particularly - are virulently anti-communist, and against anything that smacks of it. They seem to think that they're at war with anyone who doesn't agree with them, and as a consequence they fall into the right end of the political spectrum."

Is there any part of the church you can identify with or feel supported by?

"Yeah...supported by - at this point in my life, and it's no fault of the church, its just not a question of that - but when I first became a Christian and was going to an Anglican church a lot, I found that to work very well for me, and to be a source of great learning...well I won't say a source of- more a focal point of involvement with the faith and of learning about it to some extent. Whether it was that church in particular or the Anglican Church in general it's a bit hard to say, I have a feeling that it might have been the priest at that church and that church community itself. The closest I have to a church now is the gang around the Greenbelt Festival here in England with whom I'm in spasmodic contact. That's the only concentration of Christians that I'm in regular contact with. There's a general openness and a questioning, an ability to question that I think is really important that I don't see in a lot of churches."

Do you get frustrated by the 'Christian artist' tag?
'"Being tagged as anything by the media is a little frustrating because it's always one dimensional as soon as you put a label down on paper. It's equally frustrating to be constantly referred to as a 'political songwriter', or to be called a 'folk singer'. All of these categories have more or less meaning, but any attempt to typecast me makes me uncomfortable."

In Britain your following is loyal but small - you're a well-kept secret...

"It's not meant to be that way!...but it is I guess."

...But in Canada it's a different story?

"In Canada I'm part of the national scene in a way."

As someone who has the ability to reach large audiences worldwide, do you feel a particular responsibility with regard to what you communicate?

"I feel I have a responsibility to communicate ideas. I don't feel I have any added responsibility as a musician with an audience. I have a responsibility as a human being and as a writer to try and communicate meaningful things in a meaningful way, and to be concerned."

In some of your songs that concern is expressed as anger at injustice. In "Call It Democracy" you say that the machination of the IMF "make rage a necessity". Do you see anger as a good, positive thing at times?