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April 12, 2008
albums you should own: the cowboy junkies the trinity sessions
in the summer of '93(?) i went on a short term mission trip to the dominican republic for two fun filled weeks of hard labor at a missionary camp. at the tender age of almost 20 i was put in charge of a work crew of 16-18 year olds responsible for cleaning the rooftops of the dormitories around the outer edge of the camp. and when i say rooftops i'm talking about large sheets of ridged fiber glass that were probably a stunning shade of off white to dull grey when they were manufactured, but due to years and years of neglect had become a rich mossy green colour. it was tedious work consisting of lots of bleach and intense scrubbing - but we managed to have a good time nonetheless. life stories were exchanged - games were played - countless songs were sung - and amazingly no one fell off that roof (one or two legs did poke through it... with sexy results). there was some speculation that due to the age and third worldliness of the materials we were working with that there may be some asbestos lingering in the mix somewhere. but we were not dissuaded - in fact we adopted the motto that we would complete our task asbestos we could.
one day one of the girls starting singing this song about miners dying from toxic fumes in a gold mine. and we all laughed and laughed. not because she couldn't sing, because she could and it was really an appropriate song for the task at hand. and a really pretty song to boot. naturally i wanted to know who sang the song but i didn't want to sound like an idiot so i did the whole "who sings that song again"? she still looked at me like i was kind of an idiot and said the song was by the cowboy junkies. and i said oh yeah, i saw them on austin city limits a couple of weeks ago. which was actually true. so when i got back to the states i went to the sam goody at the mall across the street from st. andy's pca and picked up a copy of the trinity sessions on cassette. at first i just listened to mining for gold on endless repeat because at that point in my life i thought it would be a fantastic opener for whatever heart wrenching mixtape i happened to be working on. and i also firmly believed it was the most beautiful song i had ever heard.
and it was - until the day i mistakenly let the cassette deck spool over to track 2 and heard misguided angel for the first time. it was such a stunning song about falling in love with the wrong person. and i remember thinking to myself at the time: if i ever get to that point in my life where falling in love becomes necessary i hope it happens with the wrong person. and you know what? it totally has happened - countless times. thank you cowboy junkies! i would be remiss if i did not confess that misguided angel is easily on the short list of my favourite songs of all time. so much so that one night back in college i insisted that heidi learn the song so that we could perform it at a folk festival the school was putting on. as i recall she was unfamiliar with the song so i loaned her the cassette and honestly - i think she stole it from me. because i never saw it again and also heidi was very fond of stealing. and of telling anyone and everyone she met that she herself some was a misguided angle.
but enough about that - back to the (hot)topic at hand. the whole record was recorded straight to tape at the church of the holy trinity in toronto in 1988 and it consists of a few originals and a handful of covers. the most prominent being sweet jane which pops up on film soundtracks from time to time. i believe walking after midnight was featured in that christian slater/marisa tomei vehicle about the guy who had the baboon heart and wow - talk about tear jerking cinema. the first time ever that a movie moved me to tears like that all the while making me feel inadequate because i was just so...human.
which reminds me - the reason i've decided to talk about this record now is because the cowboy junkies have recently released trinity revisited in celebration/memoriam of the twentieth anniversary of the original album. wherein they returned to the same church and recorded each song again with ryan adams, natalie merchant, and jeff lynne in tow. the revisit is pretty uneven at times (see angel, misguided - anything involving jeff lynne) but it definitely has its moments thanks in no small part to ryan adams. he sort of saves the day. now if only someone could step in and help him save his own albums.
anyway - as a whole the trinity sessions album is one of those time and place pieces of magic. cowboy junkies have made countless records since then but none have come close to matching the quiet urgency of that record. which is why i don't own or enjoy any of them. some folks that i've recommended this album to in the past have complained that they cannot get into the album because it's so mellow. i no longer consider those people friends and have since refused to recommend any new music to them ever. because if you reject a peice of music that i love....well, you might as well be rejecting me.
| By young_christopher | 9:28 AM
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Comments
Posted by: heidi at April 14, 2008 9:29 AM
Posted by: Nick at April 14, 2008 1:50 PM
Posted by: young_christopher at April 17, 2008 11:50 AM