Dart to the Heart is an album by the Canadian musician Bruce Cockburn, released in 1994.[2][3] Cockburn considered it to be primarily an album of love songs.[4]
The album was produced by T Bone Burnett and mixed by Glyn Johns.[9][10] It was recorded at Bearsville Studios, in New York, although it was Cockburn's original intention to record the "quieter" songs in Los Angeles with a different group of musicians.[11][12]Greg Leisz played pedal steel on Dart to the Heart.[13]
"Closer to the Light" is a tribute to the American musician Mark Heard, who died in 1992.[14] "Train in the Rain" is an instrumental.[15] "Scanning These Crowds" is about Louis Riel.[16]
Entertainment Weekly wrote that the album "veers from boisterous to a little too sleepy, and includes some beautifully pithy lyrics."[20]The Washington Post called the album Cockburn's best since World of Wonders, writing that it "is dominated by quiet love songs built around acoustic guitar and a refreshingly original take on pop music's most familiar subject."[6] The Los Angeles Times considered it "tenderly hopeful in heart and slightly feisty in folk-rock spirit."[22]
The Milwaukee Sentinel thought that "Cockburn has the intelligent folk rocker's respect for words and almost never writes a throwaway."[23]The Indianapolis Star noted that "Listen for the Laugh" "has a Lou Reed-esque driving beat with edgy, flat vocals."[21]The New York Times determined that the album's best songs "describe a domestic relationship as a precious, all-too-extingishable light in a dark, lonely world."[24] The Calgary Herald concluded that Cockburn "looks within but not without sharpening his sense of observation, his sense of searching for meaning in the presence, the passion of another."[18]
AllMusic called the album "a convincing reminder of a gentler, more reflective Bruce Cockburn."[17]Salon deemed it a "great lyrical" album.[25]
Track listing
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Listen for the Laugh"
2.
"All the Ways I Want You"
3.
"Bone in My Ear"
4.
"Burden of the Angel/Beast"
5.
"Scanning These Crowds"
6.
"Southland of the Heart"
7.
"Train in the Rain"
8.
"Someone I Used to Love"
9.
"Love Loves You Too"
10.
"Sunrise on the Mississippi"
11.
"Closer to the Light"
12.
"Tie Me at the Crossroads"
References
^ abMusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Visible Ink Press. 1999. p. 249.
^Howell, Peter (February 19, 1994). "Love and longing from east to west". Toronto Star. p. L14.
^Krewen, Nick (August 9, 1993). "Rockin' the night away: Cockburn puts on a stunning performance to close festival". The Hamilton Spectator. p. D1.
^"Cockburn gets the Christmas spirit". The Globe and Mail. October 27, 1993. p. C4.
