Ives' self-published collection of 114 Songs, compiled after his 1918 heart attack and diagnosis of diabetes, was part of an effort to get before the public examples of music he had composed over a 30-year period and almost never had performed.

He included several early works in 114 Songs. That project, published in 1922, grew from a planned volume of 25 to 30 songs to its eventual huge size when Ives decided to make it comprehensive as well as retrospective. It would have been longer had several of his songs not had texts burdened with copyright restrictions on their publication.

This song was written while Ives was a student at Yale (1894 - 1898). It is a reworking of Far in the Wood, Kz 22a, a song with a text of Ives' own words composed in 1894.

Ives found new words by Moore for the 1895 version, which is the one he chose for inclusion in 114 Songs.

Not just the fact that it is in English indicates that A Night Thought was not written as an assignment for his composition teacher, Horatio Parker. If it was written for any mentor, or shown to any, it was for John C. Griggs, the choirmaster of Central Church in New Haven, CT, his boss as organist of the church (a job he held throughout his Yale years). Griggs was much more receptive of Ives' more unusual music, and on occasion defended it to Parker, who not only insisted on adherence to the rules of classical harmony but also disapproved of incorporating musical Americanisms (vernacular, gospel, popular, ethnic, or folk elements) in classical music.

A Night Thought is a relatively brief song, It is a pensive observation about the tendency to ignore or overlook the wrongs of the world. The song has a degree of chromaticism that Parker would have disapproved and, moreover, twice inserts measured of 2/8 time into the predominant 3/8. As is usually the case, most of the harmonic complexity occurs in the piano part while the voice part is relatively diatonic.

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