If you like lists, this one was once named the 29th greatest Canadian song of all time by a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio program despite the fact that several of Cockburn’s subsequent singles reached a higher chart position. It was, as well, his only Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard Hit 100. The track is from his 1979 album Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws.
Living in Canada, as I do, it is a bit of a classic here, and though I like some of Bruce’s other hit singles better, it is a good one. Gotta say that a song roughly about the world surviving another days seems pretty appropriate at the moment.
As I listen to this one and the beautiful guitar work by Bruce, I recall being in Ring Music in the early 1980s, which used to be a guitar shop near the corner of Harbord and Spadina in Toronto. The repair shop was in the back behind a big glass window. Beyond that window I could hear somebody checking out a new guitar and just tearing it up. As I looked up, there’s Bruce and I had a moment I have never forgotten.