Time Capsule: Cowboy Junkies, The Trinity Session

Growing up, my family’s home was filled with classic ‘70s music: My dad loved Mick Jagger’s snarl and funk legends Kool & the Gang, while my mom favored the soft sounds of Carole King and James Taylor. When I was in college, I’d turn on The Carpenters’ The Singles: 1969–1973 whenever I missed her, and to this day I can’t hear The Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar” without breaking into an impersonation of my dad’s signature shimmy-shake dance. Their musical preferences rarely venture outside of the Top 40s from that decade, and my mom still proudly tells me that she stopped paying attention to pop culture from the mid-’80s through to the millennium, when they were too busy raising us kids. With my myopic child mind, I figured my Uncle Randy was the same way; he looks so much like my dad, why wouldn’t they have the same taste in music? All I cared about was that he was my favorite uncle—funny, kind and easy to talk to. Only in recent years have I come to appreciate that we share an insatiable musical curiosity and eclectic tastes, and one of my favorite recommendations of his has been The Trinity Session by Canadian alt-country group Cowboy Junkies.

Appropriately, Cowboy Junkies are a family band—or nearly. Siblings Margo (vocals), Michael (guitar) and Peter Timmins (drums) are joined by bassist Alan Anton (who may as well be family considering that he and Michael have been friends since kindergarten), and the group are together to this day. On November 27, 1987, the Cowboy Junkies, their brother John Timmins and additional musicians Kim Deschamps, Jeff Bird, Steve Shearer and Jaro Czwewinec gathered in Toronto’s historic Church of the Holy Trinity to record their sophomore album. The choice in space and overall sparse sound of The Trinity Session was producer Pete Moore’s conscious reaction against the popularity of MIDI and drum machines at the time. Composed of original songs and covers of tracks by artists like proto-punk rocker Lou Reed and country legend Hank Williams, The Trinity Session remains timeless thanks to its sonic simplicity and enduring themes of love, loss and hard living. 

The entire album is hushed, sounding like it’s bathed in dusky blue light. Cowboy Junkies have always been a relatively quiet band, due in part to the group having the cops called on them for a noise complaint during their early days practicing in Alan and Michael’s garage-cum-studio. A rush of ambient, atmospheric noise whispers in the background of opener “Mining for Gold,” which Margo sings quite literally a capella. “Mining for Gold” is a cover of a tune arranged by Canadian folk artist James Gordon, but his version draws upon the song “Taku Miners” by Bill Lore, a miner who went on to become mayor of the British Columbian village Tahsis. Margo’s soulful, silky voice is a beam of light, contrasting starkly with the grit of the working man’s lament: “Can’t you feel the rock dust in your lungs? It’ll cut down a miner when he is still young.” 

Wistful harmonica, gently strummed guitar and the Old World romance of an accordion kick off the Cowboy Junkies original “Misguided Angel,” which spins a yarn about that age-old conflict of being in love with a wayward young man despite no one else approving of him. The lyrics are straightforward yet poetic as Margo murmurs over lovelorn tremolo about her lover with a “Heart like a Gabriel, pure and white as ivory / Soul like a Lucifer, black and cold like a piece of lead.” “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)” is The Trinity Session’s standout track, interpolating the 1934 song most often associated with The King (or the Marcels, if you’re more of a doo-wop fan). Nostalgic and dreamy, it’s easy to imagine the mellow rockabilly track being played on the stage of Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse. 

“I Don’t Get It” comes in with an underlying menace, a dark cloud looming on the horizon threatening us with a storm. Wily harmonica zig zags in on this straight-up blues track penned by Margo and Michael, which ruminates on the existential horror of our own mortality. Life weighs heavily on Margo here as she despondently sings about “Lookin’ for a way to lose my load / I wanna make it easy to walk this road,” and never finding a solution for her pervasive malaise. There’s more sweetness to the next track, their cover Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Try.” Margo’s honeyed voice, the silvery twang of guitar and barely-there percussion are utterly soothing, transforming the song into a lullaby. Droopy, warbling slide guitar slips in, high and otherworldly, and Margo’s vocals are so delicate at some points that I fear they’ll float away in the wind like dandelion fluff. It’s a spine-tinglingly gorgeous moment.

“To Love Is to Bury” was written by Margo and Michael, but the dark, fatalistic lyrics are indebted to traditional Irish and Appalachian folk music, edging into murder ballad territory with ambiguous lines, like,“Then one night, a terrible fight / Words spoken better left unsaid / With his wedding vows ringing in my ears / He gave his life to me.” Accordion and fiddle imbue the song with a melancholic romance, reminding us that this is a doomed love; from the first line we know that she “buried him down by the river / ’cause that’s where he liked to be.” “200 More Miles” comes across as fairly autobiographical. Margo may be singing, but the song was written by Michael, with lyrics about the difficulties of being a traveling troubadour: “They say that I am crazy / my life wasting on this road / that time will find my dreams / scared or dead and cold.” Whoever the narrator is, they’re standing by their choices, declaring, “I wouldn’t trade all your golden tomorrows / for one hour of this night.”

“Dreaming My Dreams with You” was written by Allen Reynolds and recorded by outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings in the ‘70s, while the following track “Working On a Building” is a traditional song, likely originating from a Black spiritual. The band adds just a touch of jazz to the bluesy “Working On a Building,” giving the virtuosic musicians a chance to noodle at the very end. The Velvet Underground have several versions of “Sweet Jane,” but Cowboy Junkies’ cover is based on the gentlest one, which is found on their album 1969: The Velvet Underground Live. Cowboy Junkies’ rendition was reportedly Lou Reed’s favorite, and the song allows Margo to get even sultrier and smokier with her delivery. (Side note: Michael wrote a very touching tribute to Lou Reed upon the rock legend’s death, which I would highly recommend checking out.)

Accompanied just by the tapping of a foot at first, Margo sings achingly on “Postcard Blues” about yearning for a paramor and that frustratingly thin line between lust and hate. Her voice is a shadowy whisper here before harmonica soars in, like a plaintive cry across the desert. Despite its stripped-back sound, “Postcard Blues” is drenched in sex. The idea of performing a song my brother wrote about sex and desire gives me the heebie-jeebies, but fair play to Margo; she does a fantastic job. The album closes with the Patsy Cline hit “Walkin’ After Midnight,” and once again wry harmonica takes center stage. We’re back in a smoke-filled roadhouse, throwing back cheap whiskey with the drunks and downtrodden of the world. Margo’s slinky voice is heavy with world-weary exhaustion, but keeps going as she relentlessly seeks out her lost love.

The Trinity Session closes with the musicians’ happy chatter, and as the sounds dissipate, you feel less like you’ve just listened to an album and more like you’ve relived a forgotten, bittersweet memory.

Clare Martin is a cemetery enthusiast and Paste’s associate music editor. Go harass her on Twitter @theclaremartin.