Bruce Honours the Songs That Shaped Him on New Album ‘The Blood of Others’ Out Now

Bruce Cockburn Honours the Songs That Shaped Him on New Album ‘The Blood of Others’ Out Now

Bruce Cockburn has spent more than five decades writing some of the most enduring songs in Canadian music, and on his new album, ‘The Blood of Others,’ out now through Sunset Boulevard Records, he turns his attention to the songs that shaped him long before he wrote a single lyric of his own.

The album gathers material written by others, tracing a musical lineage that stretches from the gospel and blues records he heard as a child in Ottawa to the folk clubs and coffeehouses where he first found his voice. “What began back in the eighties as a vague notion grew over time into a strong desire to put together a collection of material, written by others, that I found sticking to the edges of my musical landscape,” Cockburn explains. “The accumulation of these songs started in the sixties, before I’d even begun to try to create my own.”

Critics are already weighing in. Folk Alley calls ‘The Blood of Others’ “a gem of an album, as Cockburn shares many of his many musical influences by offering innovative takes on these songs even within their traditional structures.” Glide Magazine writes, “What comes across at the end is less a comparison with others who have performed these songs than a reminder of what a singular artist he is. His musical identity is instantly identifiable in both the guitar and his voice.

Hearing him perform the songs that helped shape that identity is a rare privilege.” Americana Highways says the record “is such a shining star in his life that it’s hard not to holler ‘Hallelujah!’” Maximum Volume Music adds, “This feels like a record he needed to make. A lifetime in music has gone into taking songs that meant so much to him and making them something special for the rest of us.” KMUW Into Music, Wichita NPR, notes that the songs “are all unmistakably and forever improved by Cockburn’s deft touches and formidable performances,” and Gonzo Okanagan calls it “a sublime and intimate encounter... Even though Bruce didn’t write these, the way he plays and sings them feels like he did and it’s a beautiful thing.” 13th Floor sums it up as “a scrapbook of memories and significances.”

The album’s title comes from an unexpected literary source, Simone de Beauvoir’s novel of the same name, written during the Nazi occupation of France. “Among other things it deals with personal responsibility in the face of scary oppression, and the kinds of choices people make,” he says. “I have borrowed the title because it seems perfect for an album of songs I didn’t write.”

‘The Blood of Others’ opens with “Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down,” a Robert Wilkins gospel number Cockburn first encountered on an early ’70s compilation. “Wilkins’ powerful bottle neck guitar and passionate singing made this conversation with God instantly memorable,” he says, noting he reworked the arrangement using the angular harmonies of his DADGAD tuning. From there, the album moves into “As Time Goes By,” the Herman Hupfeld standard forever tied to Casablanca. “Who doesn’t love the scene in Casablanca in which Dooley Wilson plays this song, Ingrid Bergman at his side?” Cockburn says. “I thought I should include the original preamble, which gives the familiar part of the song a context, but it seemed to want an update. Hopefully Herman approves.”

The album also traces Cockburn’s early fascination with jazz and ragtime through “Buddy Bolden’s Blues,” a song he learned not from a record but from a book. “My friends were singing country blues and old timey music,” he recalls. “I was drawn to the somewhat more sophisticated style of ragtime and early jazz.” That thread continues on “You Belong to Me,” a song Jo Stafford’s voice carried into his childhood home. “Jo Stafford’s gorgeously true voice was all over the radio with this when I was five,” Cockburn says. “The geographical references were exciting, awakening the travel bug in me years before On the Road lit a fire under it.”

Elvis Presley’s influence looms large on ‘The Blood of Others’ as well, most directly on “That’s Alright.” “Elvis Presley hit the radio in Ottawa right when I was hitting adolescence,” Cockburn says. “He was captivatingly charismatic of course, but the guitar. Scotty Moore’s leads, by turns raucous and tender, bred a burning desire to play the instrument.” Cockburn notes his own version leans closer to Arthur Crudup’s original recording than to Presley’s.

A hometown connection surfaces on “Four Strong Winds,” the youngest song on the record. Cockburn credits Le Hibou, the Ottawa coffeehouse he calls his spiritual home, for introducing him to the song’s writers, Ian and Sylvia, who played the venue regularly through the sixties. “We were all very excited when their song showed up on the radio,” he says.

The album’s emotional core runs through several songs tied to formative personal memories. “God Bless the Child,” the Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog standard, dates back to a record Cockburn bought with his Sunday collection money as a teen. “A couple of years later I got to hear Billie Holiday’s original version,” he says. “Theologically a bit off base, but a deeply moving expression of disappointment with the human species.” “Louis Collins,” the Mississippi John Hurt classic, arrived through an afternoon Cockburn still remembers in vivid detail. “Barbie Luther invited me to her parents’ house to listen to music,” he recalls. “She opened a bottle of Mateus wine and put on Mississippi John Hurt’s rediscovery album. I was blown away by the sweetness, the idiosyncratic phrasing and the way he put voice and fingerpicked guitar together.”

Cockburn also revisits “Yellow Dog Blues,” a song he first heard on a Bessie Smith collection as a youth boy. “Right away I fell in love with the lyrics,” he says, tracing the song’s origins to WC Handy’s time in Clarksdale, Mississippi. “Fare Thee Well” carries its own full circle story, one that connects Cockburn’s earliest musical memories to a career highlight decades later. “It came back to mind when I got to perform it with the McGarrigle sisters at Pete Seeger’s ninetieth birthday event in NYC,” he says.

Few songs on the record carry the personal resonance of “I’ll Be Seeing You.” Cockburn describes hearing a version on the radio in the nineties, in the aftermath of what he calls “a brief but heart opening relationship,” and mishearing a lyric that reshaped how he understood the song. “I thought that version ended with the line, I’ll be looking at someone, but I’ll be seeing you,” he says. “That’s not in the original lyrics. They only refer to the moon, but it hit me in a powerful way.” That memory led him to give the song a rhythmic treatment inspired by “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

The album also carries a story about the road not taken. Cockburn recounts a night in Ottawa when he and friends dressed up to see blues guitarist Lonnie Johnson, whose 1964 Paris recordings had captivated him years earlier, and requested “Laplegged Drunk Again” from the stage. “He shook his head and smiled, and said, Oh, I can’t play that song in a place like this,” Cockburn remembers. The record closes out its story arc with “One for My Baby,” a Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen standard Cockburn traces to Frank Sinatra’s 1958 recording, “Les Feuilles Mortes,” the French original of “Autumn Leaves” that Cockburn discovered through the poetry of Jacques Prévert, and “Peace in the Valley,” a Thomas A. Dorsey gospel song Cockburn first heard through Elvis Presley.

‘The Blood of Others’ marks Cockburn’s 39th album, a milestone that speaks to the remarkable consistency of a career that began in 1970. Along the way, he has earned 13 Juno Awards, been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, named an Officer of the Order of Canada, and awarded 9 Honourary Doctorates including the Berklee School of Music. His songs, including “Lovers in a Dangerous Time,” “Wondering Where the Lions Are,” and “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” remain touchstones of Canadian songwriting, covered by artists from the Barenaked Ladies to Jimmy Buffett to Jerry Garcia.

That legacy was still growing as recently as his previous studio release, ‘O Sun O Moon,’ recorded in Nashville with longtime producer Colin Linden. “Time takes its toll, but in my soul I’m on a roll,” Cockburn sang on that album’s opening track, a line that could just as easily describe the restless curiosity behind ‘The Blood of Others.’ Speaking about his songwriting at the time, Cockburn put it simply: “I just don’t want to ever keep doing the same thing.” With this new record, he proves that philosophy extends even to the songs he didn’t write himself, each one chosen and reshaped with the same care and instinct that has defined his catalogue since 1970.

Cockburn will bring these songs to audiences across North America on an extensive run of tour dates.

TOUR DATES:

• October 16, 2026, National Arts Centre, Ottawa, ON
• October 17, 2026, Massey Hall, Toronto, ON
• October 18, 2026, Le Gesù, Montréal, QC
• October 20, 2026, The Flying Monkey Movie House & Performance Center, Plymouth, NH
• October 21, 2026, State Theatre, Portland, ME
• October 23, 2026, Chevalier Theatre, Medford, MA
• October 24, 2026, The Town Hall, New York, NY
• October 25, 2026, Keswick Theatre, Glenside, PA
• October 27, 2026, Warner Theatre, Washington, DC
• October 29, 2026, Carolina Theatre, Durham, NC
• October 30, 2026, Carolina Theatre, Charlotte, NC
• November 1, 2026, The CMA Theater, Nashville, TN
• November 2, 2026, Bijou Theatre, Knoxville, TN
• November 4, 2026, Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA
• November 6, 2026, Ponte Vedra Concert Hall, Ponte Vedra Beach, FL
• November 7, 2026, Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL
• November 8, 2026, Key West Theater, Key West, FL
• March 30, 2027, Fremont Theater, San Luis Obispo, CA
• March 31, 2027, Golden State Theatre, Monterey, CA
• April 2, 2027, The Freight, Berkeley, CA
• April 3, 2027, The Freight, Berkeley, CA
• April 4, 2027, Holly Theatre, Medford, OR
• April 5, 2027, Aladdin Theater, Portland, OR
• April 7, 2027, Neptune, Seattle, WA
• April 8, 2027, Neptune, Seattle, WA
• April 9, 2027, McPherson Playhouse, Victoria, BC
• April 10, 2027, The Centre For Performing Arts, Vancouver, BC
• April 12, 2027, Kelowna Community Theatre, Kelowna, BC
• April 13, 2027, Key City Theatre, Cranbrook, BC
• April 14, 2027, Jack Singer Concert Hall, Calgary, AB
• April 15, 2027, Red Deer Memorial Centre, Red Deer, AB
• April 17, 2027, Burton Cummings Theatre, Winnipeg, MB
• April 18, 2027, The Parkway Theater, Minneapolis, MN
• April 19, 2027, The Parkway Theater, Minneapolis, MN
• April 21, 2027, Stoughton Opera House, Stoughton, WI
• April 22, 2027, Stoughton Opera House, Stoughton, WI
• April 23, 2027, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL
• April 24, 2027, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL