"Bette Davis Eyes" was
originally recorded in a 1920s jazz style by
Jackie DeShannon on her 1975 album
New Arrangement. DeShannon wrote the song with the songwriter Donna Weiss. According to DeShannon, she got the idea after watching the 1942 Bette Davis movie
Now Voyager. It was Donna Weiss who submitted the demo to Carnes, who along with her band and producer Val Garay, came up with the hit arrangement for the song.
This was a huge hit in the US, where it was #1 for nine weeks. It was not, however, the year's biggest hit. "
Physical" by Olivia Newton-John was #1 for 10 weeks.
The producer of this song had an assistant go out and buy the cheapest (and cheapest-sounding) drum set for this particular song. Combined with the sound of an early synthesizer called a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5, they found the sound they were looking for and the song was a hit. Carnes credits her keyboard player, Bill Cuomo, for making significant contributions to the chord changes and arrangement.
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Suggestion credit:
W.C. - Los Angeles, CA
Kim Carnes was a member of The New Christy Minstrels before recording as a solo artist. "Bette Davis Eyes" was by far her biggest hit, but she had several other hits as well, including "
Invisible Hands" and "
I Pretend." She also took part in the all-star charity single "
We Are The World."
Bette Davis was an actress known for playing strong, independent women. Her movies include What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? and All About Eve. She was famous for her New England accent and, of course, her eyes.
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This won the 1981 Grammy for Record of the Year, and in America, it was the third-best-selling single of the '80s, after Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" and the Diana Ross/Lionel Richie duet "
Endless Love."
After this song became a hit single, Bette Davis wrote letters to Kim Carnes and the songwriters to say she was a fan of the song and thank them for making her "a part of modern history." One of the reasons the legendary actress loved the song is that her granddaughter thought her grandmother was "cool" for having a hit song written about her.
Carnes has an unusually raspy voice. Some listeners who weren't familiar with her thought it was Rod Stewart singing this song.
The video was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who made many of the early MTV favorites. His videos were very artistic and filled with unexpected scenes. The costumed crowd smacking the floor and each other in time to the drum machine was a typical Mulcahy touch. The video was huge on MTV and gave the song a big boost.
Jackie DeShannon told Uncut magazine how the song came together: "Donna Weiss and I were writing quite a bit at the time, and we both liked black and white movies. Donna had written many pages, and I was fooling around with the melody, and we pieced together 'Bette Davis Eyes.'
We made a demo with a much more rock-and-roll feel. That's what I thought we were going to do, but the producer had another concept. It turned out OK. I don't dislike it, but it was not my concept. It had been out a long time, and Donna gave it to Kim Carnes with something else on the tape. Kim liked it and that was that. Her version was much closer to the demo version."
This is prominently featured in the 2013 romantic comedy Austenland as Jane (Keri Russell) decides to make the most of her time at the Jane Austen-themed estate she's visiting.
The opening line, "Her hair is Harlow gold," refers to platinum-blonde actress Jean Harlow, who was a huge star in the 1930s thanks to her vampy bad-girl roles in films like Red-Headed Woman (she dyed her famous locks for that one) and Dinner At Eight. She died of kidney failure in 1937 at age 26.