Songfacts®:

• When the Cowboy Junkies were touring for their album The Caution Horses in 1990, they invited Texan singer/songwriter Townes Van Zandt to join them. The tour must have sparked some serious inspiration because Van Zandt penned a song specifically for the band called "Cowboy Junkies Lament." Not to be outdone, Cowboy Junkies guitarist Michael Timmins paid homage to Van Zandt with the track "Townes' Blues." Both songs found a home on the Cowboy Junkies' fourth album, Black Eyed Man, alongside their cover of Van Zandt's classic "To Live is to Fly," a fitting closer for the record.
• "Townes' Blues" is a true story. "Townes was a big craps player, you know, dice," Michael Timmins told Uncut magazine. "We did a lot of craps playing in the back lounge of the bus. Money was exchanged very fast. Craps is like that. You're up a hundred dollars, and you're down a hundred dollars within five minutes."
  
  "We did this one drive from Boulder, Colorado, to Houston on the bus – a 24-hour drive - and played craps the whole time," he continued. "Townes was very familiar with that area because he'd lived in Colorado for a long time and was born in Texas. There's a route that you can go through the Raton Pass, which cuts six hours of that journey. We had this bus driver who was an intimidating guy, a racist and a weird fly in the ointment of this nice tour. This whole time we were playing craps, and Townes would be up, then suddenly he'd be down, and he'll be complaining about the driver because 'if he'd just gone through the Raton Pass, we'd be there by now. I'll be up all this money. "
  
  Timmins concluded: "That's what the song is: the characters on the bus, the band, about Townes, and about winning and losing and the ups and downs of craps and life."
• Released in 1992, Black Eyed Man incorporates a mix of folk, blues, and rock influences, maintaining the band's signature atmospheric and melancholic sound.
• Michael Timmins produced the album. Timmins' production style is known for its minimalist approach, emphasizing the natural sound of the instruments and Margo Timmins' haunting vocals.
• Black Eyed Man was The Cowboy Junkies' only album to reach the Top 10 in their native Canada, peaking at #8 on the Canadian albums chart.