About The Song
In December 1986 Ray Price included “Just Someone I Used to Know” on his album *The Heart of Country Music*, released on the independent Step One Records label. The Texas singer, then in his early sixties, had returned to a stripped-down traditional sound after years of smoother productions and occasional pop experiments. The collection gathered well-known country standards, allowing Price’s warm baritone to revisit the straightforward storytelling style that had defined much of his early work in the 1950s and 1960s.
Price had earned the nickname Cherokee Cowboy during his rise in the early 1950s. Hits such as “Crazy Arms” introduced the shuffling rhythm that became his signature and filled dance floors across the Southwest. After Hank Williams’ death he briefly led the Drifting Cowboys, and later scored major successes with songs like “For the Good Times.” By the mid-1980s, however, mainstream country radio favored newer, more polished acts, so Price turned to Step One Records to record the kind of material that had first built his audience.
The song was written by Jack Clement, known in Nashville as “Cowboy” Jack. Born in Memphis in 1931, Clement worked as a producer and engineer at Sun Records in the late 1950s, where he contributed to recordings by Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison. He also wrote hits such as “Ballad of a Teenage Queen” for Cash. Clement penned “Just Someone I Used to Know” in the early 1960s and first offered it to George Jones, who recorded it under the title “A Girl I Used to Know.” Released in 1962, Jones’s version reached number three on the Billboard country chart.
Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton later turned the song into a duet, retitling it for their 1969 single. Their harmonious version climbed to number five on the country chart and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group. The track became one of the most recognizable recordings of the song, appearing on their joint album *Porter Wayne and Dolly Rebecca*. Other artists, including Charley Pride and Jimmy Dean with Dottie West, also cut versions over the years.
At its heart the song describes a quiet act of concealment. The narrator carries an old photograph but tells anyone who asks that the person in the picture is simply “someone I used to know.” The lyrics reveal private sorrow beneath a calm exterior, a theme common in classic country ballads where dignity often masks deep personal loss. The melody’s gentle pace and straightforward structure suit the understated emotional weight of the words.
Price’s 1986 recording arrived more than two decades after the Porter and Dolly hit and nearly twenty-five years after George Jones’s original. As an album track rather than a single it did not appear on Billboard charts, yet it fit comfortably alongside other standards on *The Heart of Country Music*. The project reflected Price’s determination to honor the genre’s roots at a time when many veteran artists faced changing industry tastes. Through repeated recordings by different generations of country performers, Clement’s composition has remained a concise portrait of lingering memory and restrained heartache.
Video
Lyric
There’s a picture that I carry
One we made some time ago
When they ask who’s in the picture with me
I say just a girl I used to know.Just some one I used to spend some time with
Just a flame that lost it’s glow
I don’t tell them how lost I am without you
I say just some one I used to know.Just some one I used to run around with
Just a friend from long ago
I don’t tell them how lost I am without you
I say just some one I used to know.I say just some one I used to know