Beautiful Strangers – Mavis Staples

Purvis Staples and the Staple Singers – long before they were on Stax they were on Epic and they were one of my favorite groups of all time. I met them all in ’62 or ’63. They heard my songs live and Purvis wanted to record three or four of them and he did with the Staples Singers. They were the type of artists that I wanted recording my songs.
– Bob Dylan MusiCares Acceptance Speech

The writer of today’s prayerful song, Kevin Morby, wrote in his substack article below about how Bob Dylan mentioned the Staple Singers in his MusicCares speech, and what an honour it was that they had recorded his songs. Dylan then mentions how he crossed paths with Nina Simone in New York and how much he looked up to her as an artist.

The backstory and creation of today’s featured song sung by former member of the Staples Singers – Mavis Staples is really something else, so I’ll turn it over to Kevin Morby – in his own words – because it’s one for the music annals:

When I wrote Beautiful Strangers I had been lying in bed strumming my nylon string guitar, transfixed in the ceiling fan slowly rotating above my head. I was listening to Nina Simone’s To Love Somebody – an album I had been drawn to because of her Dylan and Cohen covers.

I had been trying to learn her arrangement of Suzanne before falling into a similar chord structure with a slightly different rhythm before realizing I was writing my own song. If memory serves, then an hour or so later I had Beautiful Strangers, almost exactly as you hear it on the recording.

In 2025, Mavis Staples, from the group Dylan thought so highly of, released a record called Sad and Beautiful World when she was 86 years old. The record won two Grammy awards, one for Godspeed and today’s song Beautiful Strangers.

I just love how this song sounds and how the words evoke such a deep spiritual feeling. Mavis’ weathered voice carries such weight to the lyrics, like you’re hearing all the lived experience and wisdom in her breath. It’s so beautiful and touching in its restraint, yet thoughtfulness. The interspersing soul-rendering chorals of ‘Oooh’ running throughout the song are wistful and alluring.

But to share Dylan’s sentiment; hearing Mavis sing it only validates everything that I am about. And for that I am forever grateful. Hearing her sing it is, without a doubt, the highlight of my career and one of the greatest gifts of my lifetime.

– Kevin Morby (writer of Beautiful Strangers)

It just all seeps through me when I hear it, like a sensation of nature. Although ‘soul’ music isn’t usually my cup of tea, Beautiful Strangers most definitely is.

Along with Mavis’ deeply textured voice, the magical guitar interludes, which seem to twinkle, are my favourite parts of the song. When I hear the guitar in this, I immediately think of Clapton’s guitar work in his unheralded, yet magnificent – We’re All The Way. It’s very cool.

[Verse 1]
If you ever hear that thunder
Put your eye to the sky, boy, and wonder
Maybe there’s a kingdom above the weather
Oh, and whether you’re gonna get on in
Is up to you

[Verse 2]
If you ever hear that crying
In the distance like some siren
Maybe there’s a singer with no ring
Around their little finger, oh love
And If I lose my voice
If I have no choice but to go quiet
Won’t you sing for me
A melody into the night there

[Chorus]
And if I die too young
Oh, if the wolf he comes
Fee-fi-fo-fum
If I die too young
And the locust come
Then run, run, run free

[Verse 3]
If you ever hear that gunshot
You may think ’bout what you do but you don’t got
Say a prayer
Think of mother
I am a rock

[Verse 4]
If you ever hear that sound now
If the door gets kicked in here, they come now
Think of others
Be their cover
I am what they’re not

[Verse 5]
Pray for Paris
They cannot scare us
Or stop the music, no
You got a sweet voice, child
Why don’t you use it?

[Chorus]
And if I die too young
If the gunmen come
I’m full of love
So release me
Every piece of me
Up above
Up above, ooh

[Verse 6]
Love my mama and my papa
Love my sister
Can’t stand the coppers
Up in their choppers
Oh, flying overhead
Forty-nine dead

[Verse 7]
Singing, oh my Lord come carry me home
Oh my Lord carry me home
Oh my Lord come carry me home

[Chorus]
And if I die too young
For something I ain’t done
Carry my name everyday
Oh, I’m sorry
Oh, I’m sorry
Freddie Gray

[Chorus]
But sleep easy
Like baby Jesus
In a manger
Oh, sleep easy
Like baby Jesus
Beautiful stranger

[Chorus]
If I die too young
Let all that I’ve done
Be remembered

[Outro]
And I’ll sleep easy
Like baby Jesus
In his manger
And I’ll sleep easy
Like little Jesus
Safe from danger
Carry onward
Like some songbird
Beautiful stranger
Carry onward
Like some songbird
Beautiful stranger
Oh my lord, beautiful stranger
Oh my lord, beautiful stranger

References:
1. Sad and Beautiful World – Wikipedia
2. Mavis Staples – Kevin Morby Fam Club