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SEARCHThe entrance to the Wittliff Collections in San Marcos has a crow in it. The crow is bronze. It holds the ashes of Guy Clark. Terry Allen made it. He titled it Caw Caw Blues — after the last song Clark worked on before he died. The Wittliff Collections holds the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University. Now it also holds something else.
Guy Clark died on May 17, 2016. He was 74 years old. He was one of the central figures of the Texas singer-songwriter tradition. Both Allen and Lucinda Williams covered his songs. The last piece of writing Clark worked on was the song “Caw Caw Blues.” It was inspired by the barbed-wire crow nests of West Texas. Clark gave the unfinished song to Rodney Crowell, who completed and recorded it. The sculpture that stands at the Wittliff entrance takes its title and spirit from that last song.
A Crow at the Door
The base of the sculpture carries a line from Clark’s song “The Cape.” The lyric reads: “He’s one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith.” That lyric lands differently when you’re standing in front of the ashes of the man who wrote it. The Wittliff holds the archives of Texas writers and musicians — Cormac McCarthy, Sam Shepard, Townes Van Zandt, and many others. Allen’s sculpture doesn’t sit inside the archive. It stands at the door, before you enter, as the first thing you see.
Allen’s other Texas sculptures include the wishbone at DFW Airport Terminal D and the bronze of CB Stubblefield at Stubb’s on East Broadway in Lubbock. But Caw Caw Blues is different from the others. It carries a man. The Wittliff Collections are open to the public on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library at Texas State University.
