A Greyhound Memory

Fifteen years ago, or so, I traveled by Greyhound bus from Florida to Colorado, traveling through Tallahassee and Biloxi and everywhere in between, to re-connect with my wonderful father. It was an incredible time, but I want to revisit the experience of traveling on a Greyhound bus for two days, stopping in little places where Sheriff's cars pulled up, un-handcuffed someone, and put them on the bus, and women sat with sticky-faced babies feeding them bottles of koolaide and people sipped from brown paper bags watching wistfully out the windows as the States rolled by. I like this song by Blaze Foley. It embodies the people I met on that trip, and I'd do the trip again.

John Prine singing Blaze Foley's song, Clay Pidgeons:



Lyrics to Clay Pigeons :
I'm going down to the greyhound station
Gonna get a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with 2 or 3 kids
And sit down by her side
And ride until the sun comes up and down around me about 2 or 3 times
smoking cigarettes in the last seat trying
to hide my sorrow from the people I meet
And get along with it all
Go down where people say ya'll
Sing a song with a friend
Change the shape that I'm in
And get back in the game
And start playing again

I'd like to stay but I might have to go to start over again
I might go back down to Texas I might go somewhere that I've never been
And get up in the morning and go out at night
And I won't have to go home
Get used to being alone
Change the words to this song
And start singing again

I'm tired of running round looking for answers to questions that I
already know
I could build me a castle of memories just to have somewhere to go
Count the days and the nights that it takes to get back in the saddle
again
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talking again if I know what to say

I'm going down to the greyhound station
Gonna get a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with 2 or 3 kids
And sit down by her side
And Ride until the sun comes up and down around about 2 or 3 times
smoking cigarettes in the last seat
trying to hide my sorrow from the people I meet

And get along with it all
Go down where people say ya'll
Feed the pigeons some clay
Turn the night into day
Start talking again when I know what to say