Favorite Bruce Who Songs: If I Had a Rocket Launcher (#1)

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Wherever Bruce Watson (the man behind “Bruce Who”) is, I want to thank him for the fun we’ve had on myLot. JJ got his album as a “freebie” with an order, and from there Scott wanted a “Bruce Who” countdown. I’m always happy to oblige, so I’ve been featuring songs by people named Bruce or bands with “who” in their names. Here’s the top Bruce. #1: If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn Like most Americans, the first time I heard this Canadian legend (he’s been awarded the Order of Canada and has been on a Canadian postage stamp!) was courtesy of his hit “Wonderin’ Where the Lions Are.” Thanks to that song I actually got to see him in concert and briefly meet him in 1980, when he was opening for Warren Zevon in Orlando. His other brush with fame, however fleeting, in the US was 1984’s socially conscious album Stealing Fire. “Lovers in a Dangerous Time” fit in with the mid-80s sound and received MTV airplay. (U2 even referenced a line from the song [“got to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight”] in their hit “God Part II.”) This song, however, is haunting. That’s why it’s ranked on this list above a Poco song. It’s one of those songs that I simply could not get out of my mind when I first heard it. Cockburn wrote it about Guatemalan refugees (but as unstable as the entire region was in the 80s, it could have been any group), after visiting the region. His brother is a doctor in the Canadian Army, and Bruce would accompany him to these war-torn regions, where he saw the horrors he articulated in this song firsthand. “Not a call to violence, but a cry,” is how Cockburn describes the song (“I want to raise every voice, at least I’ve got to try”). A man who has witnessed “things too sickening to relate” goes from pacifist (“I don’t believe in guarded borders and I don’t believe in hate”) to wanting some way to “make somebody pay” after seeing “a hundred thousand wait to fall down from starvation or some less humane fate.” No, this isn’t a pleasant subject matter. “Human rights violations” is such a sanitized term. “Cry for Guatemala with a corpse at every gate” makes it a little more realistic. His pacificity turns to rage by the end of the song, when he declares, “If I had a rocket launcher some son of a b*tch would die.” A troubling song from troubling times. Thanks for reading. If I Had a Rocket Launcher Written by Bruce Cockburn Recorded by Bruce Cockburn From Stealing Fire, 1984 Situation desperate: