Billy Strings – Catch and Release
2022 · Directed by Robert Bohn
17K Likes
Best comments
1.“My dad is the cop that stopped him – the one he's talking about in this song. Our whole town went crazy about it when it came out.”
More comments
- 2.“I love it when the dog hands over the weed.”
- 3.“My daughter once told me it was amazing how many of my stories from my younger days ended with 'and the cops came and we all ran away.'”
The story
It's a true story. On October 6, 2020, Billy Strings went bass fishing in Tennessee with his buddy Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon. They smoked some weed on the drive, a state trooper pulled them over and smelled it right away, took the stash, and put Billy through a roadside sobriety test. Then he let them go. Catch and release. Get it?
Billy turned the whole morning into a slow, talky story song, closer to Shel Silverstein than to a bluegrass burner. Animator Robert Bohn drew it up as a cartoon that follows the trip beat by beat, from hitching the boat to the truck to the flashing lights, and it ends with the trooper smoking from the confiscated pipe as they drive off.
The video came out on October 6, 2022 – two years to the day after the traffic stop. The song stayed unreleased until 2024, when it landed as track ten on Highway Prayers, co-written with Aaron Allen and Jon Weisberger. Justice, Tennessee style: the cartoon cop gets the last hit.