Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

“I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” belongs to a loose family of traditional songs that, according to the Traditional Ballad Index, most often go by “Broken Ties” or “Broken Vows.”[1] In the Index’s reading, the “blue eyes” chorus is missing from the texts found before the Carter Family recorded the song and turns up in some collected afterward, which raises the possibility that one led to the other.[1] Sources differ on who wrote it: the Index gives the author as unknown and regards the Carters’ record as their reworking of a traditional song, while the Victor disc label, as transcribed by the Discography of American Historical Recordings, names A. P. Carter as composer.[1][2] Encyclopedia Virginia describes A. P. Carter as the group’s gatherer and arranger of songs, who also added original pieces of his own.[3]

Painting of small sailboats on a choppy green sea under a gray sky

Édouard Manet, Boats at Berck-sur-Mer, oil on fabric, 1873. Shown for its seafaring mood; it has no connection to the song.

The Carter Family recorded it as “I’m Thinking To-night of My Blue Eyes” in Camden, New Jersey, on February 14, 1929, with Sara Carter on autoharp and Maybelle Carter on guitar, and Victor issued it on V-40089.[2] The Index lists reissues on several labels through 1938, along with later recordings by Shelton & Fox, the Saddle Tramps, Jimmie Davis, Wilf Carter (as Montana Slim) and Gene Autry.[1] Drawing on a 2002 history of the Carter Family, the Index also relates that in February 1939, while the group was working on border radio, Sara Carter dedicated the song on the air to an old flame, Coy Bays.[1] She married him (his name later spelled Bayes) in Brackettville, Texas, on February 20, 1939.[4]

The Ballad Index finds “The Great Speckled Bird,” a song Roy Acuff popularized and recorded in 1936, strongly similar to the Carter Family’s version, and suggests the Carter song may have inspired it.[5] Citing D. K. Wilgus, the Index adds that the “Blue Eyes” version inspired, and lent its tune to, Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life” and “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.”[1] Kitty Wells recorded the latter in 1952 as an answer to Thompson’s hit.[6] Jim Miller includes the song in 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 2, a 40-page book of songs performed by the Carter Family, with mountain dulcimer tablature, lyrics and chord symbols, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Thinking Tonight Of My Blue Eyes"

Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "Broken Ties (I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes)".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-49859. I'm thinking to-night of my Blue Eyes / Carter Family".
  3. Encyclopedia Virginia: "A. P. Carter (1891–1960)".
  4. Encyclopedia Virginia: "Sara Carter (1898–1979)".
  5. Traditional Ballad Index: "The Great Speckled Bird".
  6. Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum: "Kitty Wells".
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Jim Miller, 15 Tunes In The Public Domain Recorded By The Carter Family, Volume 2".
  8. Image: Édouard Manet, Boats at Berck-sur-Mer, oil on fabric, 1873. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song