[2] The song is a sad tale of a love that had been lost far across the sea, set to traditional English folk music.
In February 1939 on XET Station, Mexico, Sara Carter dedicated the song to her long lost boyfriend Coy Bayes, who was in California at the time.
Mother Maybelle used the Carter Family picking on the song, which was new at the time, the bass notes are played with her thumb and she strums with her other fingers.
The song was later put on the Carter Family album: My Clinch Mountain Home: Their Complete Victor Recordings (1928–1929).
Ralph Stanley in 2006 recorded a complete album of Carter Family songs, including "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes", titled A Distant Land to Roam: Songs of the Carter Family.