I'll Close My Eyes is a 1945 song written and composed by Billy Reid. The original recording with Reid’s lyrics was by Dorothy Squires in December 1945, and the tune begins as a regretful ballad about losing a romance—the refrain ends with imagining the loved one. Soon after, Buddy Kaye wrote new, more upbeat lyrics turning it into a pledge of fidelity - “I'll close my eyes to everyone but you” - and Frances Langford performed the revised words on radio in 1947. Over the years it has become a jazz standard, covered by many artists including Sarah Vaughan (1957) and Dinah Washington (1957), with Washington’s version featuring the Quincy Jones Orchestra and later used in film soundtracks such as The Bridges of Madison County and The Butler. Connie Francis also recorded it in 1959 for the album My Thanks To You, which used the original lyrics, while the Kaye version was not released until 1993.
