The song arrived with a Western short film directed by Bryan Schlam, Strings and the actor Todd Jenkins in a story of revenge and redemption on the frontier, and the music matches the picture: a galloping jail song that reviewers heard as Marty Robbins by way of an Ennio Morricone score. The lyric is a confession without a plea. The narrator has seven weeks in the county lockup and won’t blame the man who put him there, the hand that lost him his poker chips, or the land that gave him seven years of famine. His only enemy, the one out to catch him and whip him, turns out to be the face he sees when he shaves: he is the man who put himself here, “for seven weeks in county and for always everywhere.” Buzzards, desert sun and a bed he made himself round out the picture.

On the record Strings sings and plays guitar with his touring band: Billy Failing on banjo, Alex Hargreaves on fiddle, Royal Masat on bass, and Jarrod Walker on mandocello rather than his usual mandolin, with Jon Brion adding drums and percussion. The song went straight into the live show and has stayed there.