Alex Dupree has shared You’re a Dog, Don’t Talk to Me, the single from Talking to the Dog, his first album since 2022’s Thieves and due August 14th via Scissor Tail Records. It follows lead single New Meaning, shared earlier this month.
The song is a Michael Hurley cover, and Dupree reworks it with new lyrics and a new arrangement. He’s played it live for years, playing up its humour; for the album he tried changing things and there’s the suggestion that here, Dupree is both telling a story and listening for your response.
“I started playing this song live in about 2016. It’s from a Michael Hurley record of demos called Parsnip Snips,” Dupree says. “I always thought it was a sneakily gorgeous song about someone at the verge of a psychotic break and trying to talk themselves down. The tender mania of it struck me immediately.”
The song choice carries some weight this year. Michael Hurley, the songwriter often called the “Godfather of freak folk,” died on 1st April 2025. KLOF has returned to him across the months since — his posthumous Broken Homes and Gardens, and Alela Diane’s Who’s Keeping Time?, an album shaped in part by grief following Hurley’s death and a tribute show she played in his memory. Dupree’s reading joins that thread.
Talking to the Dog was produced by Michael Krassner (Califone, Simon Joyner) and features Jolie Holland. When KLOF covered Thieves, Bob Fish found tales worthy of a novelist told in under five minutes; this widens the frame.
Talking to the Dog (August 14th, 2026) Scissor Tail Records
Pre-order (Digital, Ltd Vinyl): https://alexdupree.bandcamp.com/album/talking-to-the-dog