The Last Thing on My Mind

Infobox Single
Name = The Last Thing on My Mind


Artist = Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton
from Album = Just Between You and Me
B-side = "Home is Where the Hurt Is"
Released = October 1967
Format =
Recorded = September 1967, RCA Studio "B"
Genre = Country
Length =
Label = RCA
Writer = Tom Paxton
Producer = Bob Ferguson
Chart position = * #6 (U.S. Country Singles)
Last single =
This single = "The Last Thing on My Mind"
(1967)
Next single = "We'll Get Ahead Someday"
(1968)

"The Last Thing on My Mind" is a song written by Tom Paxton in the early 1960s, which Paxton first recorded in 1964. The song has since been covered by well over four dozen artists, including Judy Collins, The Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Harry Belafonte, The Carter Family, Johnny Cash (with Diana Trask), Marianne Faithfull, The Seekers, Sandy Denny, Charley Pride, Hank Snow, Doc Watson, Anne Murray, José Feliciano, Jean Shepard, Bill Anderson, Gram Parsons, Clarence White, The Move, The Vejtables, Chet Atkins, Nana Mouskouri, Joan Baez, Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell, Rick Danko, Gene Clark, The Dillards, Flatt & Scruggs, Willie Nelson, Pat Boone, Hank Locklin, Tony Rice, Herb Pedersen, Joe Dassin, Noel Harrison, Paddy Reilly with The Dubliners, Wally Whyton, Rodney Dillard, Carolyn Hester, Dennis Brown, Daniel O'Donnell, Cry, Cry, Cry, and others. Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton's 1967 recording of the song reached the top ten on the U.S. country singles charts in December of that year.

The song's melody is not too different from the traditional British Isles folk song Leaving of Liverpool. Bob Dylan used the melody and some of the chorus lyrics of Leaving of Liverpool in a song he adapted and retitled as "Farewell" in 1963. All of these songs are about saying goodbye to one's lover and missing them deeply.

The song remains one of Paxton's most well-known compositions.