Back to [Discography]      or       [Home]

My Favorite Picture Of You
Guy Clark and Gordie Sampson

My favorite picture of you
is the one where you’re starin’ straight into the lens.
Just a Polaroid shot someone took on the spot;
no beginning, no end.

Just a moment in time you can’t have back.
You never left, but your bags were packed.
Just in case.

My favorite picture of you
is bent and it’s faded and it’s pinned to my wall.
Oh and you were so angry,
it’s hard to believe we were lovers at all.

My favorite picture of you
is the one where your wings are showin’.
Oh and your arms are crossed, your fists are clenched
Not gone, but goin’.

Oh a stand up angel who won’t back down
Nobody’s fool, nobody’s clown,
You were smarter than that.

My favorite picture of you
is the one where it hasn’t rained yet.
Oh and as I recall there came a winter squall, we got soakin’ wet.

Oh a thousand words in the blink of an eye.
The camera loves you and so do I.
“click”

My favorite picture of you
is the one where you’re starin’ straight into the lens.

Jerry Jeff Walker’s version adds to the end of Verse 1
Fire in your eyes, heart’s on your sleeve,
Curse on your lips, but all I can see is beautiful.

Excerpt from: Lonestar Music Magazine, written by Brian T. Atkinson. October 2011
A frequent co-writer the past two decades, Clark came across that song’s idea during a recent one-on-one session. “A writer here named Gordie Sampson from Nova Scotia came over one day, the first time we got together,” he says. “Nashville writers have their ‘hook list.’ He said, ‘See anything in here that you like?’ I saw that line, ‘my favorite picture of you’ and this whole song just popped into my head. I said, ‘Yeah, I have that picture right there.’ That’s always been my favorite picture of [Clark’s wife] Susanna. Me and Townes were drunk off our ass [when the photo was taken], just roaring and acting up. She’d had enough and walked out the door. I guess [John] Lomax [III] took that picture of her because it was his house. It just has all of her qualities in it: ‘I’m not putting up with this shit anymore!’