I'll Be Here in the Morning by Brian T. Atkinson

Author:Brian T. Atkinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Published: 2012-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Michael Timmins. Courtesy Stephane Boule

MICHAEL TIMMINS

Snake eyes cry, boxcars sigh

Seven’s stuck in the middle just wonderin’ why

—TVZ, “Cowboy Junkies Lament,” from No Deeper Blue

The Cowboy Junkies enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with Townes Van Zandt throughout the 1980s and 1990s. “Townes’s words, voice, and music were the soundtrack to our early rambling journeys across the continent,” says the band’s guitarist Michael Timmins.1 The Canadian quartet repaid creative fires fueled by offering the songwriter widespread exposure. At the height of their popularity, the Cowboy Junkies invited Van Zandt as tour support on a twenty-five-city route in 1990, exposing his music to a new and likely receptive audience. By the band’s account, Van Zandt remained mostly sober and performed superbly throughout the run.2

Van Zandt answered by writing “Cowboy Junkies Lament,” a deliberately crafted song recorded on his final studio album, No Deeper Blue (1994). “He said, ‘The first verse is about you, the second verse is about [singer] Margo [Timmins], and the third verse is about [drummer] Pete [Timmins],” Michael Timmins says.3 One of Van Zandt’s more memorable later-year lyrics carries the tune. “Mama, don’t you worry, night’s approaching / There’s a hole in heaven where some sin slips through,” he sings. “Close your eyes and dream real steady / Maybe just a little will spill on you.”4 Michael Timmins later penned the song “Townes’ Blues” about their travels together.

Michael Timmins, born April 21, 1959, in Montreal, Quebec, shaped the Cowboy Junkies’ debut Whites Off Earth Now!! (1986) with syrupy takes on Van Zandt influences such as Lightnin’ Hopkins (“Shining Moon”), Big Joe Williams (“Baby Please Don’t Go”), and John Lee Hooker (“Forgive Me”). Many consider the album a precursor to the band’s definitive statement. Trinity Sessions (1988) trademarked the Cowboy Junkies’ “country on Valium” sound and established the band as Canada’s alternative country pioneers.5 Twenty years later, artists including Ryan Adams (“200 More Miles”), Vic Chesnutt (“Postcard Blues”), and Natalie Merchant (“To Love Is To Bury”), gathered at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity, where the Cowboy Junkies recorded the original album, in order to acknowledge their debt by recording the tribute Trinity Revisited (2008).

The Cowboy Junkies’ major label follow-ups The Caution Horses (1990), Black Eyed Man (1992), Pale Sun Crescent Moon (1993), Lay It Down (1996), and Miles From Our Home (1998) hewed closely to that languid blueprint. The band deepened its Townes Van Zandt connection by closing Black Eyed Man with the trilogy “Cowboy Junkies Lament,” “Townes’ Blues,” and “To Live’s To Fly,” and included the Timmins and Van Zandt “cowrite” “Blue Guitar” on Miles from Home. “I think Townes knew what he was doing was pretty special,” Timmins says. “He had an understanding of his place, which is unusual.”6

The Cowboy Junkies foreshadowed trends by entering into the new millennium on their own Latent Recordings record label to release Waltz Across America (2000). The band continues to capitalize on the artistic latitude self-releasing allows today. “We have never lacked a work ethic in this band,” Timmins says, “but this freedom has allowed us to think as big or as small as we want.

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