In the Wild Side of Life thread, Dick asked for this one. Here you go.
There are a great number of songs that have been based on this tune. At the moment I can't think of them all, but here is Blue Eyes.
It is on Rounder 1065, My Clinch Mountain Home, volume two of the complete Victor recordings of A. P., Sara, and Maybelle Carter. Incidentally, the song is a fine example of the great guitar style for which Maybelle is so justly famous. Rounder will complete the series of Victor releases by the Carter Family with the release of volumes eight and nine next month. Each volume has 16 songs
From the notes by the well known scholar, Charles K. Wolfe: "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" is another Carter song that became a standard, echoing down through the years in country music. One historian has called it "the best known melody in country music," and it has been used for everything from Roy Acuff's "Great Speckled Bird" to Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels." Sara and Maybelle both recalled that they had known the song all their lives, certainly it shows up in dozens of folksong collections, and prior to the Carter version had been recorded by Welby Toomey (a Kentucky singer), Earl Johnson (a Georgia fiddler), the Stoneman Family (from the Galax, Virginia, area), and others -- though none of them actually used A.P.'s title. Sara and A.P. sing the duet again.
I'M THINKING TONIGHT OF MY BLUE EYES
as recorded by The Carter Family on either February 14 or 15, 1929
Would've been better for us both had we never
In this wide and wicked world had never met
For the pleasure we've both seen together
I am sure, Love, I'll never forget.
Chorus
Oh, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
Who is sailing far over the sea.
Oh, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
And I wonder if he ever thinks of me.
Oh, you told me once, dear, that you loved me.
You said that we never would part,
But a link in the chain has been broken,
Leaves me with a sad and aching heart.
Chorus
When the cold, cold grave shall enclose me,
Will you come near and shed just one tear,
And say to the strangers around you:
"A poor heart you have broken lies here"?
Chorus