The Caution Horses - Cowboy Junkies

I was sat on my bed in Hartlepool gazing out of the window whilst the cassette wound its way to the start of the new album by the Cowboy Junkies....


"Sun comes up, it's Tuesday morning
Hits me straight in the eye
Guess you forgot to close the blind last night
Oh, that's right, I forgot, it was me"


And so with that opening verse I was hooked. Good and proper. It is a great album and contains some great songwriting and well adopted cover versions.  Any album with the lyrics "It's the kind of night that's so cold, when you spit it freezes before it hits the ground", surely deserves anyones attention and love?


Of course I loved their previous album, 'The Trinity Session', but I had found that album a good while after it had been released. It felt a bit like entering a party when it has well and truly got underway; you can still enjoy yourself but deep down you know that you have missed part of the night and there is no way to fill that gap. 


This time it was different. I had been waiting for this album to be released and had made my purchase on the day of release. I can remember the agonising choice, or at least that it how it felt at the time, whether to buy the album on cassette or CD? In 1990 CDs were still relatively expensive in comparison to tapes and they lacked the portability of their magnetic counterparts. It was an increasingly common dilemma that I faced and the time spent in record shops was getting increasingly longer - in some cases to a ridiculous level. Frozen by a fork in the path. To overcome this I drew up a few ground rules. After all what is life if not for making up arbitrary rules? More like guidelines really. Anyway it went something like this;

1. Was this one on my top bands or recording artist? To qualify for this they had to have had works in my collection for a minimum of two years with at least two entries.
2. Did the purchase present a risk? Was there any danger that I may not like it?
3. Was I likely to be travelling in the near future? Would a more portable format be of short term benefit?
4. Would the album benefit from a cleaner, digital format? 
5. Was there any other benefit from purchasing the more expensive digital option? Did it have any additional tracks?

Not a complicated set of rules but it really helped speed up the decision making process. Anyone reading my blog for the first time might suspect that I am a little obsessive. Regular readers will already know that this is the case! Thankfully this choice no longer has to be made as everything is digital these days....except I now have to decide between whether to buy the physical media or simple download a computer file. Blast! More agonising choices....... So I have drawn up another set of rules........

In case you are wondering, the answers to the questions above, in relation to this album were;

1. No
2. Yes
3. Yes
4. Mmm not sure
5. Nope

So on that basis I bought the cassette...... and then several years later the CD. Tscchh!