Cliff Waldron
Thinking About You
Bluegrass Time (1973) Bluegrass Discography
“Thinking About You” was recorded by Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys in 1953 for Mercury, the version associated with this entry. The recording belongs to the F&S Mercury-era period (1948–1955) when the band was establishing the Foggy Mountain Boys’ working sound after their split from Bill Monroe.
The song’s authorship is generally given to Lester Flatt, in keeping with much of the writer-credited material from the Flatt-led era of the band. The lyric is a yearning-after-her-departure piece: the narrator’s thoughts circling back to a former lover, her absence the only fact he can hold onto in the days since she left.
The harmonic shape is straightforwardly traditional in G or A, the tempo sits in the moderate range, and Flatt’s flat-baritone lead vocal carries the lyric’s quiet weight. Curly Seckler’s tenor harmony on the chorus and Scruggs’s three-finger banjo break give the recording its definitive Foggy Mountain Boys texture. The song works as a vocal feature in any traditional set with a strong chorus harmony slot.
