I Wonder Do You Think Of Me

Album: I Wonder Do You Think Of Me (1989)
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Songfacts®:

  • "I Wonder Do You Think Of Me," the title track from Keith Whitley's third studio album, was released in June 1989, one month after the country singer's death from alcohol poisoning. In the emotional ballad, written by Sanger "Whitey" Shafer, Whitley is still in love with his high school girlfriend and wonders if he ever crosses her mind.
  • Whitley recorded the Lefty Frizzell classic "I Never Go Around Mirrors," also written by Shafer, for his Don't Close Your Eyes album. Although it was a big hit at his concerts, his record label didn't think it would work for radio and tasked him to find something similar but more commercial. Whitley dipped back into Shafer's catalog and found this tune. After he died, his widow, country singer Lorrie Morgan, approved its release as a single, and it went to #1 on the Country chart.
  • A gift from his second wife, Lyndia (his co-writer on the George Strait hit "All My Ex's Live In Texas), helped Shafer lay the groundwork for the track.

    "When I first got married to Lyndia, she sold her house and bought me an electric piano, and that's the first melody I came up with," he recalled in The Billboard Book Of Number One Country Hits. "I never could find any idea, or any words, that I wanted to put to that song. But every once in a while, I'll just play an old melody if I'm in a certain mood, and the words will fall into that melody.

    About 1986, I came up with that song. Keith was gonna put it out as a single, regardless of the circumstances, but it's kind of ironic the way it is now. It kind of hits the nail on the head."
  • Kenny Chesney covered this in 2004 and included it as a bonus track on the Target edition of his album When The Sun Goes Down.

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