“Some Old Day” is a traditional Southern song widely associated with the Stanley Brothers and the broader Carter Stanley songwriting circle, with roots that may go back further into the older bluegrass-and-country tradition. A landmark early recording is J.D. Crowe and the New South’s 1975 reading on their Rounder debut The New South (catalog 0044), one of the foundational documents of late-1970s bluegrass.
The song was written by Louise Certain and Gladys Stacey, members of the songwriting community that supplied material to the Stanley Brothers and allied acts on King and Starday. The 1975 album was recorded with what is widely regarded as the strongest single configuration of any New South lineup: Crowe on banjo, Tony Rice on guitar and lead vocals, Ricky Skaggs on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and Bobby Slone on bass. The album’s sound — harder than the more progressive New Grass bands but harmonically open beyond the strict Flatt & Scruggs traditional — helped define the “newgrass-traditional” aesthetic of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The lyric is a hopeful-future text: the narrator promising that things will get better some old day, the relationship will mend, the troubles will pass. Tony Rice’s lead vocal carries the lyric’s quiet hopefulness without irony, and the band’s tight ensemble break lifts the recording above the older traditional readings of similar material.
