Thinking about "Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes"

The Carter Family song "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes" is one of the first Carter Family songs I learned and it has been in the Bob&Lynn Dixon Band's repertoire since we first started playing out. I have always sung the chorus:

Oh, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
Who is sailing far over the sea
I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
And I wonder if he/she ever thinks of me

( I sing "if she ever thinks of me")

Recently, I heard a slightly different chorus done by Doc Watson and in two different Jams it seemed that the other singers were using the 'altered' version - this goes:

Oh, I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes
Who is sailing far over the sea
I'm thinking tonight of him/her only
And I wonder if he/she ever thinks of me

This got me wondering if I just learned it wrong or if there just two versions of it.

So the other day I checked my recordings of the Original Carter Family: they recorded it at least twice and both are the way I learned it. The Doc Watson recording with the 2nd version is from the album the 'Vanguard years' so he recorded in the '60s or '70s.

I went on Google and found the following in published lyrics for other versions (these don't always match what is actually sung):

• Gene Autry (1942) & Ralph Stanley(2006) use the 'original' version.
• In addition to Doc Watson, Dolly Parton and June Carter sing the 'altered' version.

It may be that June Carter created the altered version or that Sarah Carter changed it at some point. In a biography of the Carter Family, there is the story of how Sarah sang this on the radio appealing to the man she loved to contact her - maybe she sang the altered version.

As for me, I'll continue to sing the original chorus. I'm used to it and it is the one I prefer.