Rambling is one of bluegrass’s oldest preoccupations. The music came out of communities where people left home for work, for war, for trouble, or just because the road was there. Songs about wandering carried over from the old ballads, picked up steam in the brother-duet era with acts like the Delmore Brothers and the Blue Sky Boys, and got their definitive bluegrass shape in the hands of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers. The 25 songs here are the ones you’ll hear called at jams and festivals when somebody wants to play something about leaving.

Use this list as a working repertoire. Learn a few you don’t know yet, or settle arguments about how a verse really goes. Each song’s page on Picker’s Guide has chord charts, lyrics, recordings, and song history, so you can dig in as deep as you want before the next jam.