“I’m Lost and I’ll Never Find the Way” was recorded by the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys at Music City Recordings in Nashville on 16 July 1956 and issued by Mercury on 14 February 1957 as Mercury 71064, with “The Flood” on the other side. The Mercury single credits the song to Ralph Stanley. Carter Stanley sang lead, Ralph the tenor and Curley Lambert the baritone; Ralph played banjo, Lambert mandolin and Doug Morris bass, and two fiddles are credited on the session, one of them Ralph Mayo. It was cut at the same session as “Let Me Walk, Lord, By Your Side.”
The lyric opens with the singer pining away alone and being told that parting is for the best, though it breaks his heart. He compares himself to a ship adrift at sea, asks why she does not come back, and recalls that she had promised to be true and that he believed her with all his heart. By the last verse every vow has been broken, and he is left alone and cold in the world.
Cliff Waldron recorded it as “Lost and I’ll Never Find the Way” for Rebel on the 1973 LP Bluegrass Time, with Dave Auldridge singing tenor and Curly Lambert, who had sung baritone on the Stanleys’ record, on baritone. Ricky Skaggs, with Peter Rowan, recorded it on his 1982 Rounder album Family & Friends.
