“Stranger on the Shore” is a piece for clarinet written by Acker Bilk for his young daughter and originally named “Jenny” after her. It was subsequently used as the theme tune of a BBC TV drama serial for young people entitled Stranger on the Shore.

Real Name: Bernard Bilk
Birth Date: 28th January 1929
Birth Place:Pensford Somerset

Bilk earned the nickname Acker from the Somerset slang for friend or ‘mate’. His parents tried to have him learn the piano, but Bilk as a boy found it restricting upon his love of outdoor activities including football (soccer). He also lost two front teeth in a school fight and half a finger in a sledging accident, both of which Bilk has claimed impacted his eventual clarinet style. He eventually learned the clarinet while serving in the British Army, and by the mid-1950s he was playing professionally.

Bilk has been described as “Great Master of the Clarinet”

Here I stand, watching the tide go out
So all alone and blue
Just dreaming dreams of you

I watched your ship
As it sailed out to sea
Taking all my dreams
And taking all of me

The sighing of the waves
The wailing of the wind
The tears in my eyes burn
Pleading, “My love, return”

Why, oh, why must I go on like this?
Shall I just be a lonely
Stranger on the Shore?

The sighing of the waves
The wailing of the wind
The tears in my eyes burn
Pleading, “My love, return”
Why, oh, why must I go on like this?
Shall I just be a lonely
Stranger on the shore?

Words by Robert Mellin