Song · Bruce Cockburn
“If I Had A Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn
From the album Stealing Fire (1984)
“If I Had A Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn appears on 2 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 2009 and 2020. It was first released in 1984 on the album Stealing Fire. Its best result is #689 on the WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #2,996 indie & aaa song of all time.
Watch
Video from YouTube (Bruce Cockburn - Topic). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"If I Had a Rocket Launcher" comes off Stealing Fire, Bruce Cockburn's 1984 album, and the Canadian singer-songwriter wrote it after an Oxfam-sponsored trip to camps in Mexico full of Guatemalan refugees driven out by the dictator Efraín Ríos Montt's counterinsurgency campaign. The song gives up on waiting for a political fix and seethes with the urge to settle the score himself, every verse ending on what he'd do with the weapon of the title.
He had brushed against politics before, but this was his first openly political single, and it recast him as an outspoken activist in song. Kerry Crawford and Jonathan Goldsmith produced it. Cockburn later called it a cry rather than a call to arms, and in 2009 he played it for Canadian troops in Afghanistan and was briefly presented with a rocket launcher for his trouble.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 707 | WYEP | WYEP 913 Essential Songs | 913 |
| 2020 | 689 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
Also listed as: If I Had a Rocket Launcher.
Comments
Log in or create a free account to join the conversation about "If I Had A Rocket Launcher" by Bruce Cockburn.
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts.