They didn't write it, but Flatt & Scruggs' live version of "I Wonder Where You Are Tonight" at Carnegie Hall is the standard by which other bluegrass covers of the song are measured.
“I Wonder Where You Are Tonight” Lyrics and Chords
I had to do some research to learn more about “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight.” It’s one of those songs that just seems like it has always been around.
For me, it has. It’s one of the first songs I learned when I first started going to bluegrass jams and didn’t know a lick of bluegrass. It’s a good one for beginners—all the basic chord changes, and easy to predict where it’s going next.
Country music hall-of-famer Johnny Bond apparently wrote the song, and recorded it in 1940 with Jimmy Wakely and His Rough Riders. We can presume Bond was one of those Rough Riders.
Hank Snow’s 1950 recording brought the song to prominence, but it was acts like the Louvin Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, and Jim & Jesse that brought it into the bluegrass canon. And rightly so, because it’s about as lonesome a song as you’ll hear.
The number of big bluegrass acts that have covered this song is too large to list here. Check out Flatt & Scruggs Live at Carnegie Hall, and when you’re done with that, get a load of Doc Watson’s tasty guitar fills in the version at the bottom.
“I Wonder Where You Are Tonight” Lyrics and Chords
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night I’m said, my heart is
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weary
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Wondering if I’m wrong or
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right
To
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think about you though you’ve
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left
me
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wonder where you are to
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night
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CHORUS
That old
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rain is cold and slowly
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fallin’
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pon my window pane to
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night
And
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though your love was even
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colder
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wonder where you are to
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night
You
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broke my heart you never
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loved
me
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Though you often said you
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cared
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now you’ve gone and found a
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nother
Some
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one who knows the love I
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shared
CHORUS
Then
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came the dawn the day you
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left
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tried to smile with all my
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might
But
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you could see the pain with
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in
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That
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lingers in my heart to
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night
CHORUS
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Iconic: Flatt & Scruggs Live at Carnegie Hall
Old School: Jimmy Wakely and his Rough Riders (first recording)
Also Good: Mac Wiseman, Doc Watson and Del McCoury
1 thought on ““I Wonder Where You Are Tonight” Lyrics and Chords”
Re: I Wonder Where You Are Tonight — The writer of the song, Johnny Bond, was indeed one of Jimmy Wakely’s Rough Riders when they recorded for Decca on August 29, 1940, in Los Angeles. Bond, Wakely, and the band’s bassist, Dick Reinhart, sang a trio on the chorus. Guitarist Bond continued to record with Wakely, switching to play bass in the Rough Riders after the first three 1940 recording sessions.
Re: I Wonder Where You Are Tonight — The writer of the song, Johnny Bond, was indeed one of Jimmy Wakely’s Rough Riders when they recorded for Decca on August 29, 1940, in Los Angeles. Bond, Wakely, and the band’s bassist, Dick Reinhart, sang a trio on the chorus.
Guitarist Bond continued to record with Wakely, switching to play bass in the Rough Riders after the first three 1940 recording sessions.