Street Spirit
Cowboy Junkies
BY Sarah Liss February 20, 2008 15:02
A shocking proportion of people I know have some intense emotional association with the Cowboy Junkies’ version of The Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane.” It’s weird — for a low-key downer of a tune covered by a cabal of Ontarians who, at the time of the song’s release (1987), were a relatively unknown alt-country band, that track had some kinda reach. One close friend associates “Sweet Jane” with intense sexual trauma at a house party; another lost her virginity to it. For me, the languorous, opiate-hazed cover represents the first time I smoked pot, and later, the first time I realized I had a crush on a girl.
The muted, haunting arrangement, combined with Margo Timmins’ thick, murmured vocal, gave the track a heart-crushing sense of timelessness, which is probably why filmmakers with an investment in psychodrama (Oliver Stone, Miguel Arteta) included it on their soundtracks. Moreover, the emotional potency of their version made it seem like the Cowboy Junkies owned that song. (When I finally discovered the Velvet Underground original, I was certain they were performing a cover.)
Along with the rest of the peerless, reverent tunes on their disc, the Junkies’ “Sweet Jane” has always struck me as a precursor to Cat Power’s Covers Record (released in 2000), as an example of the tremendous power that can come from one artist’s sensitive, innovative interpretation of another artist’s work. It was a daring experiment for a band with just one other album to their name (at the time, Whites Off Earth Now!! was their only other release). So I think it’s awesome that the Cowboy Junkies chose to commemorate the 20th anniversary of The Trinity Session by inviting other artists to interpret their Trinity originals with the Trinity Revisited album and tour.
The Trinity Revisited disc came out last October, followed by a behind-the-scenes doc and a performance film; the Junkies have been taking participating artists on the road with them in support of the record. That’s the idea behind this Saturday, Feb. 23’s show with Ryan Adams (who sang lead on Trinity Revisited’s “200 More Miles”) at Massey Hall. While it may not reach the transcendental heights of the original session in T.O.’s Church of the Holy Trinity, the collabo will likely produce some decent tingly sensations. Just keep your “Cuts Like a Knife” requests to yourself — Adams isn’t much for the jokes these days.
Ryan’s hope
On that note, it’s worth observing that Adams is in a particular funk of late. The troubadour has been going through an exceptionally gruelling split with model and fashion writer Jessica Joffe. Adams (under the name HORION74) documented his emotional turmoil in a series of videos (“Sad Days,” “Gloria”), which he then uploaded to YouTube and later removed. This came hard on the heels of the poor man’s “anonymous” email to the Gawker blog (www.gawker.com), which featured a Joffe-inspired love poem. Why send it to a public blog? Allegedly, his ex had started blocking his emails.
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