Billy Base

SONG INFORMATION

First recording and first release by The Stanley Brothers (May 1960 / August 1960)

Billy credits this song with saving his life and bringing him back to bluegrass on multiple dates throughout his career, most recently: 2022-04-23 & 2022-05-09. He tells the story of borrowing his Mom's car while in high school, pushing in her cassette tape to see what she was listening to and the Stanley Brother's "Rank Stranger" is what played. That moment he fell in love with bluegrass again.

I wandered again to my home in the mountains
Where in youth’s early dawn I was happy and free
I looked for my friends, but I never could find them
I found they were all rank strangers to me.

Everybody I met (everybody I met)
Seemed to be a rank stranger (seemed to be a rank stranger)
No mother nor dad (no mother or dad)
Not a friend could I see (not a friend could I see)

They knew not my name (they knew not my name)
And I knew not their faces (and I knew not their faces)
I found they were all (I found they were all)
Rank strangers to me. (rank strangers to me.)

“They’ve all moved away,” said the voice of a stranger
“To a beautiful land by the bright crystal sea”
Some beautiful day I’ll meet ’em in heaven
Where no one will be a stranger to me.

Everybody I met (everybody I met)
Seemed to be a rank stranger (seemed to be a rank stranger)
No mother nor dad (no mother or dad)
Not a friend could I see (not a friend could I see)

They knew not my name (they knew not my name)
And I knew not their faces (and I knew not their faces)
I found they were all (I found they were all)
Rank strangers to me. (rank strangers to me.)…