Songfacts®:

• In his autobiography, the music hall star Charles Coborn described this song as "a stupid American semi-ballad". Sung by Ida Morris, "The air was tuneful enough, but the words were so trivial that I felt that it screamed out to be parodied...". The parody he wrote was called "Two Lovely Black Eyes", and was sung long after the original was forgotten.
• "My Nellie's Blue Eyes" was written by William J. Scanlan, and published by Francis Brothers & Day of London in 1886. Scanlan wrote the song for the play The Irish Minstrel in which he acted, and which was produced at the Poole Theatre, New York in 1886, though the song and the play were actually written some three years earlier. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2