"Stranger on the Shore" is a piece for clarinet written by Acker Bilk for his young daughter and originally named Jennyafter her. It was subsequently used as the theme tune of a BBC TV drama serial for young people that was also called Stranger on the Shore.

The track, performed by Bilk (as "Mr. Acker Bilk") with backing by the Leon Young String Chorale, was released as a single on Columbia Records DB 4750 in October 1961, with the label of the single openly proclaiming "Theme from the BBC TV. Series". The B-side was "Take My Lips". The single became a phenomenal success, topping the NMEsingles chart and spending nearly a year on the Record RetailerTop 50. It was the UK's biggest-selling single of 1962, the biggest-selling instrumental single of all time, and appears fifty-eighth in the official UK list of best-selling singles issued in 2002.

On May 26, 1962, "Stranger on the Shore" became the first British recording to reach number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 where it was issued by Atlantic Records on the Atco label, but it was quickly followed, on December 22, by The Tornados' "Telstar", another instrumental. In the pre-rock era, Vera Lynn's "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" had reached #1 in 1952, on the shorter "Best Sellers In Stores" survey. After "Telstar", the next British performers to top the U.S. charts were The Beatles, with their first Capitol Records single "I Want to Hold Your Hand". "Stranger on the Shore" was Billboard's #1 single of 1962, and it spent seven weeks atop the "Easy Listening" chart, which would later become known as the Adult Contemporary chart. The tune became the second of three "one hit wonders" named pop single of the year by Billboard(the others being 1958's "Volare (Nel Blu Di Pinto Di Blu)" by Domenico Modugno and 2006's "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.

In May 1969, the crew of Apollo 10 took "Stranger on the Shore" on their mission to the moon. Gene Cernan, a member of the crew, included the tune on a cassette tape used in the command module of the Apollo spacecraft.

The composition has been covered by many other artists, most prominently a vocal version by Andy Williams, a group vocal version by The Drifters, and a soprano sax smooth jazz adaptation by Kenny G. It was also sampled (with a writer's credit for Bilk) on "A Melody From a Past Life Keeps Pulling Me Back" by The KLF on their album Chill Out, and on the track "Music For Libraries" by Way Out West.

The song was also featured in the soundtrack to Mr. Holland's Opus, as well as in the1988 film, Red Heat, the 1998 romantic comedy There's Something About Maryand the 2001 movie The Majestic.

The song was playing in the scene in the 2008 Season 2 finale of Mad Menwhen Betty Draper was having a drink in a bar.

The song is used as the theme tune to BBC Radio 4 sketch show That Mitchell and Webb Sound.