This version can be heard on Spotify:

MY WIFE WENT AWAY AND LEFT ME
As recorded by J. E. Mainer on "The Very Best of" (2009)*

The wife went away and she left me
Out in this wide world alone.
With madness and gladness she left me,
Though she left a doggone good home.
I set down and I wrote her a letter.
I sealed it with a kiss.
When the answer came back the next morning,
What she said to me was this:

When the groc'ry man puts sand in his sugar,
And the milkman makes milk out of chalk,
When the boys stay home with their mothers,
And the girls forget how to talk,
It's after the dance-halls are over,
And the railroad runs under the sea,
When the man in the moon comes down in a balloon,
Baby, I'll come back to thee.

Well, I set down and I wrote her another
I sealed it with my fist [SPOKEN:] I was mad then.
And when the answer got to her the next morning,
What I said to her was this:

When the ocean turns into corn whiskey,
And the stars they fail to shine,
When the moon turns into an apple,
And the rainbow turns into a vine,
It's after the baseballs are over,
Make glasses to see the wind,
When these women quits a-usin' powders and paint,
Baby, I'll ask you again.

[* This is a very peculiar album. I'd like to know why it has a picture of Spike Jones on the cover.]