Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers
Think of What You’ve Done
“Think of What You’ve Done” was written by Carter Stanley and first recorded by The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys in 1958. The song belongs to the productive late-1950s King Records period of the Stanley Brothers’ career, when Carter’s songwriting was at a particularly consistent peak and the brothers’ vocal arrangement had settled into the tight, mournful close-harmony idiom that defined their mature sound.
The song is a classic Carter Stanley heartbreak ballad — the singer asking his absent partner to consider the harm she has caused. The lyric’s economical accusation framing and the slow, mournful melody pair the songwriter’s gift for compact emotional statement with the Stanley-tradition delivery that has carried the piece into the contemporary bluegrass repertoire largely unchanged.
“Think of What You’ve Done” has been recorded by Fair River Station, Chatham County Line, The Settlers, Richard Dillow and Larry Collier, The South Forty, and Billy Strings, among many others. It remains one of the more reliable late-1950s Stanley Brothers vocal pieces at jam sessions where pickers want a Carter Stanley-tradition heartbreak song with the characteristic Stanley emotional reserve. The song sits comfortably alongside “Rank Stranger,” “How Mountain Girls Can Love,” and “Love Me Darling Just Tonight” as part of the King Records-era Stanley Brothers canon.
