Pop Capsules : Cockburn Offers Heavy-Handed Politics, Vivid Poetry

Though he identifies himself as a Christian, singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn tends to be less concerned with pondering the nature of God and the meaning of life than determining how to apply his beliefs.

When he sang, “When you’re caught up in this longing, all the beauty of the Earth don’t mean a thing” during his warm solo performance at the Wadsworth Theatre on Saturday, he was singing about a longing of the flesh, not the spirit.

The Toronto-based performer’s worldly quests were given a fine airing through his rich baritone (only slightly diminished by a case of the flu), his often stunning folk-rock-blues guitar playing and an understated, self-mocking tone. At his best, Cockburn presented vivid portrayals of life’s promises and its horrors.

But in this concert Cockburn’s songs tended to fall into two categories: the poetically personal and the pedantically political. Though there’s occasional overlap (notably in the searing rage of “If I Had a Rocket Launcher,” a song inspired by a visit to Central America), the elegance of the former approach (which made up the first half of the nearly two-hour concert) made doubly infuriating the heavy-handedness of the latter (which dominated the second half).

And the knee-jerk, left-wing rhetoric of the likes of “They Call It Democracy” and “Santiago Dawn” was only rendered more clumsy by the in-kind response it drew from many in the enthusiastic audience.