Description
Cowboy Junkies – Songs of the Recollection – Vinyl Record
Songs of the Recollection begins with the idea of musicians as listeners. Cowboy Junkies describe the record’s origins in the songs and artists that entered their lives long before, and throughout, their own career. Released in 2022, the collection brings together nine interpretations, including new recordings and performances previously issued in other settings. That approach fits a band for whom playing other writers’ music has always been a serious part of making records. Rather than presenting a broad survey of familiar hits, the selections trace a personal route through several decades of songwriting.
David Bowie’s “Five Years” opens the album, placing an account of impending catastrophe in the measured atmosphere associated with Cowboy Junkies. Gram Parsons’ “Ooh Las Vegas” follows, and the Rolling Stones’ “No Expectations” adds another kind of emotional weight. The differences between the source recordings are substantial, yet the band’s attention to pacing and space provides a common setting. Margo Timmins’ voice is central to that process. Her delivery can redirect attention toward a line or a pause, allowing a well-known song to reveal details that a listener may previously have passed over.
Neil Young is represented twice, through “Don’t Let It Bring You Down” and “Love in Mind.” Placing those songs together makes his writing a particularly strong presence within the collection. Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Way I Feel” extends the connection to Canadian songwriting, while Bob Dylan’s “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You” brings a more recent composition into the program. The range gives the album a sense of musical memory that is still active. These are songs the band can inhabit at the time of recording, not simply reminders of an earlier listening history.
The final portion includes Vic Chesnutt’s “Marathon” and the Cure’s “Seventeen Seconds,” broadening the emotional and stylistic territory once more. Four selections had been commercially released before this album, while five recordings were new to the collection. That mixture suits the premise: the band’s relationship with outside material has accumulated over time, through tribute projects, EPs, and fresh sessions. Hearing the performances together brings those separate occasions into conversation, emphasizing how the group’s own musical identity can connect writers whose original recordings occupy very different places.
The vinyl edition contains the complete nine-song sequence. Its central pleasure is the encounter between distinctive source material and a band with an equally distinctive approach to interpretation. Cowboy Junkies allow mood, dynamic detail, and the weight of the singing to guide the performances, making the record approachable for longtime listeners while offering several routes in for admirers of the featured songwriters. Songs of the Recollection is a covers album with a clear personal rationale: a set of pieces that remained part of the musicians’ lives and found new expression through their own ensemble.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
Five Years
Ooh Las Vegas
No Expectations
Don't Let It Bring You Down
Love in Mind
The Way I Feel
I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
Marathon
Seventeen Seconds
