Highway Hi-Fi Podcast Desert Island Recordings: The Trinity Session by The Cowboy Junkies
Faced with the prospect of an untimely death, 25-year-old Mary Lambert Swale drew up an unusually specific last will and testament. The daughter of the wealthy English family, Swale anonymously bequeathed to the Anglican Church of Toronto 5000 sterling, an astronomical sum in 1845, to erect a new church. This gift came with stipulations, however. The building must be constructed in the Gothic Style in a cruciform structure. The congregation must be named Church of the Holy Trinity. And, most importantly, that all people be welcome in the church and that its pews be “free and unappropriated forever.” This was a radical request as a common practice among Anglican churches of the time was charging pew reservations as a way to allow the more affluent to worship undisturbed by the pathetic prayer riff-raff. The Church of the Holy Trinity was dedicated in October 1847 and its doors have ever more been open to all.
It is fitting that this deference to the past, insistence on beauty, and the requirement for openness would be built into a church that 140 years later would play host to a recording session that would make the environment a critical aspect of its music. The Cowboy Junkies would hole up in the Trinity Church and quietly play their haunting Shoegaze Americana into a single microphone nestled in the midst of the five-story Cathedral. The hushed beauty that was committed to tape in that sacred place on the “The Trinity Session” is a commentary against the increasingly digital and frantic world surrounding them.
If you'd like to hear why Lou Reed's "Take No Prisoners" is our favorite live album of all-time, listen to the Love That Album Podcast.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices