Clay Pigeons

Clay Pigeons was written by the Austin songwriter Blaze Foley, born Michael David Fuller, who was shot dead in Austin in 1989. His own recording survives on Live at the Austin Outhouse, taped by his friend John Casner. Its narrator is a man on his uppers buying a bus ticket and hoping to get back in the game, and American Songwriter has called it Foley's calling card.

Prine reached Foley through Merle Haggard's version of If I Could Only Fly, which he said blew him out of his chair. Introducing Clay Pigeons on Austin City Limits in 2005, he said he rarely sang other people's songs because he could barely sing his own. He told Relix that when he went through the rest of Foley's work this one stood out as if he had written it himself, so covering it felt natural. He recorded it for Fair & Square with Jason Wilber on electric guitar and harmonica, Phil Parlapiano on piano and accordion and Dave Jacques on bass. PopMatters found it such a natural fit that a friend took Foley's original for Prine.

Prine first played it in Birmingham, Alabama, in April 2005, and sang it 42 times in logged setlists, the last at the Grand Ole Opry House on New Year's Eve 2019. Michael Cera recorded it in 2014.