Songfacts®:

• I was young, I had a chip on my shoulder
  You were tall, baby five years older
  We got drunk and made love
  On the very first night
  
  This song recounts the story of Margo Price meeting her husband, Jeremy Ivey, in Nashville and falling in love.
  
  Oh love and pain, it comes in waves
  But it was quite nothing those early days
  We were wild as wolves my darling
  We were strays
  
  The song also reflects how Price and Ivey have always tried to stay true to who they are.
• Margo Price penned most of the words and Jeremy Ivey wrote the chords and melody. It was produced by Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty).
• "Strays" is the title track of Strays II, a companion piece to Price's 2023 album Strays. Strays II expands the original LP with nine new songs recorded at Wilson's Topanga studio during the same sessions as the rest of Strays.
• "Stray" is also the title of a chapter in Margo Price's autobiography. So why does the word resonate with her so much? "I think even going back, I'm dropping Easter eggs in my first album (Midwest Farmer's Daughter). On 'Since You Put Me Down,' I said, 'I'm an outcast, I'm a stray, and I plan to stay that way,'" she explained to Mojo magazine. "I love the imagery that word conjures, and I know lots of people will connect to it differently. Y'know, whether it's thinking of a stray dog, stray people. Someone who's an outcast in general. But I wanted this album to have a feral, wild, returning-to- nature kind of feeling."