Clay Pigeons

There is no chorus. A thirteen-line first verse comes back as the last, and only a few words run past two syllables. The narrator is restless and leaving a relationship by bus. Lynne Margolis of American Songwriter called it masterful in its simplicity, and James K. Williamson heard in it the slight optimism Foley felt on leaving Rosen in Chicago. He cut a studio version at Bee Creek in 1988, released on Wanted More Dead Than Alive, and Robert Christgau singled out the live take as a choice cut.

John Prine heard it through a friend in Austin and thought it sounded like one of his own. His version, on the Grammy-winning Fair & Square in 2005, was voted number eight of the year by KGSR listeners. Gurf Morlix, Michael Cera, Dylan Earl, Luke Grimes and Lucy Dacus have all recorded it, and Ben Dickey sings it in character early in Blaze. The upload in the hypersongs web is the live version recorded at the Austin Outhouse in December 1988, from the Live at the Austin Outhouse CD.