There’s a group here in Canada called Cowboy Junkies that embraces a minimalist aesthetic, recording their first album in a barn around a single mic.

I couldn’t do that (there’s only one of me), but I did try to keep it Cowboy Junkie simple.

Love’s a Puzzle that we Make

Opens the box, scatters pieces here and there
The picture is a dragon, but on the table blue and grey everywhere
She looks at the picture, and at the diffuse lot
And ever-painter, ever artist she puts them in their spot

For days, the chaos lingers
More Picasso than Krieghoff
But piece by piece, bit by bit
The randomness, she shakes off

Sky takes shape, the ground, the castle mortar and the beast
Now not much is strewn, just the ones so hard to piece
Watching it take form, observers start to see
Love’s labours never lost, constrained and yet set free

He takes the pink guitar, rattles the pickup switch
Recalling long ago, when it wasn’t so hard to pitch
The pieces on the table, formed clearly in his mind
He puts the last reel on the deck, remembers to rewind

Note by note he feels it, that puzzle in his head
Every piece she layed in, he plays where it was set
Music takes shape, dragons clouds fall into line
And an age old castle, stitched back with nickel twine

Deep in winter’s darkness, what else can you do?
But love the things you have, love the ones you’re with
No break will come, to end the masks and cautions that we take
Except imagination, love’s a puzzle that we make,
Love’s a puzzle that we make.
Yeah, love’s a puzzle that we make.
Love’s a puzzle that we make.