“Stone Walls and Steel Bars” was written by Ray Pennington and Roy Marcum. Pennington was a Kentucky-born songwriter, performer, and record producer who worked across country and western swing; the Stanley Brothers recorded the song in 1963.
It is a prison song told from inside the cell. The singer is locked behind stone walls and steel bars, cut off from the woman he loves, and the lyric measures his punishment less by the sentence than by that separation. The plain, hard imagery suits the Stanley Brothers’ lonesome sound.
The song has stayed in circulation among bluegrass and old-time bands and even drew the attention of Bob Dylan, who performed it on tour in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The version heard here is by the Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys.
