The Stanley Brothers - Rank Stranger

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 seemed to be a rank stranger

No mother or dad not a friend could I see

They knew not my name and I knew not their faces

I found they were all rank strangers to me.

Now they've all moved away said the voice of a stranger

To a beautiful home by a bright crystal sea

And some day I'll meet them all up in Heaven

Where no one will be a rank stranger to me.

      The Stanley Brothers were an American bluegrass duo made up of brothers Carter Stanley and Ralph Stanley. They performed as The Stanley Brothers with their band, The Clinch Mountain Boys, from 1946 to 1966. Ralph kept the band name when he continued solo after Carter's death in 1966, until his own death in 2016.

      Rank Stranger is one of their most significant songs. Since its recording its meaning has often been debated. To some, its wayfaring narrator is a Civil War veteran returning from battle to find his world not only irrevocably changed, but strangely alien as well: "Everybody I met seemed to be a rank stranger, no mother or dad not a friend could I see."