Hungry Eyes by Eric Carmen

Album: Dirty Dancing Soundtrack (1987)

Charted: 82 4

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Songfacts®:

Look for a musical interlude about an hour into many movies - especially romantic comedies - which is when audiences start to tire of dialogue. In the movie Dirty Dancing, this song provided the soundtrack to Jennifer Grey's undercover dance lessons with Patrick Swayze. The song was not only a key piece of the movie, but helped the soundtrack sell over 48 million copies worldwide.
Eric Carmen is best known as one of the founding members of The Raspberries and writer of "All By Myself," "Almost Paradise" (Ann Wilson and Mike Reno) and other hits of his own like "Make Me Lose Control." This is one of the few songs Eric recorded that he did not write. He was asked to do it by his old Raspberries producer Jimmy Ienner, who was the musical director for Dirty Dancing.
This song was co-written by John DeNicola and Franke Previte, who also wrote another huge hit from Dirty Dancing, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life." Previte was the singer and DeNicola was the bass player in the '80s Pop group Franke & the Knockouts, who had a hit with "Sweetheart." The group recorded for Millennium Records, which was helmed by Jimmy Ienner, who asked Franke for songs when he was producing the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Previte told us: "Jimmy had closed his label and 'Hungry Eyes' was a song on my demo reel, because I was trying to get a new recording contract. No one thought the song had a chance. I guess history proves them wrong."
Eric Carmen said of recording this song: "At the point when that happened, I had moved back from Los Angeles to Ohio and decided to concentrate on being a songwriter. I had become disillusioned with the idea of being an artist. I only learned to sing because I had to. I never really liked my voice, and I still don't really. So I decided I'd just be a songwriter. I'd be in Ohio and have a normal life. One day, my former producer, Jimmy Ienner, called and said he was working on the film Dirty Dancing. He had this one song, and he thought I was the guy to sing it. He sent the tape. It sounded like Air Supply with Led Zeppelin's drummer. It was very strange. But through it, you could hear there was actually a pretty good song in there somewhere. The next thing I knew, Dirty Dancing sold 15 million albums, and all of a sudden, I was a performer again."
On September 8, 2010, the original demo of this song will be released as part of the collection Dirty Dancing: The Original Demos, which will raise money for the Patrick Swayze Pancreas Cancer Resarch Foundation at Stanford University.

Comments: 8

Music Man Ash from Leeds, EnglandBelieve it or not this song was not released commercially as a single in the United Kingdom and only charted in the 80’s on import sales.
Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn this day in 1988 {January 9th} Eric Carmen performed ""Hungry Eyes" on the ABC-TV Saturday afternoon program, 'American Bandstand'...
At the time "Hungry Eyes" was at #23 on Billboard's Top 100 chart, five weeks later it would peak at #4 {for 1 week}, and it spent almost a half-year on the Top 100 {25 weeks}...
And on February 7th, 1988 it reached #2 {for 1 week} on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Tracks chart, the week it was at #2, the #1 record for that week was "Can't Stay Away From You" by Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine...
Between 1975 and 1988 the Cleveland, Ohio native, as a solo artist, had thirteen records on the Top 100 chart, three* made the Top 10 with his biggest hit being, "All By Myself", it peaked at #2 {for 3 weeks} on February 28th, 1976...
Besides "All By Myself", his two other Top 10 records were the above "Hungry Eyes" and "Make Me Lose Control" {#3 in August of 1988}...
As a member of the Raspberries he charted seven times, with one Top 10 record, "Go All The Way", it reached #5 {for 2 weeks} in October of 1972...
Eric Howard Carmen celebrated his 70th birthday five months ago on August 11th, 2019...
* He just missed having a fourth Top 10 record when his "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" peaked at #11 {for 2 weeks} in June of 1976...
Doria from Dania Beach, Fli love this song because i had a major crush on this guy named jimmy he was tall dark and very handsome i really think he was the most sexiest man i had ever seen in my lifehwen i would look and him and talk to him i would feel this overwhelming feeling of being very hot i was very quickly drawn to him and he was very quickly drawn to me too . would say i had hunger eyes for him and he had hungry eys for me too! i no longer had this very deep within me shyness towrds him in fact he took the syness away from me for good i was working on either a staurday or sunday flea market inb maspeth quessn ny. and he decided to suprise me by sataying with me through the morning afternon and at night time too! he skipped work that day just to be with me. that day he bough me breakfast lun and dinner and snaks to and we even ate together too! mom took a break because she had been working so very hadr that day so i told he to take her break we spent some alone time at the flea market he also helped me with my work too i will never ever forget jimmy for the rest of my life until the good lord says it's time for yuo to come home my child ! signed doria bernadette meyer
Les from Joplin, MoCheck out Carmen's discography on Wikipedia. It is quite extensive! "She Did It" is another of his very popular hits.
Kevin Witt from Haymarket, VaYa AJ, and don't forget "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again and "Chanage of Heart." Come on now.
Victor from Vienna, Vawhat about "Make me Lose Control?" That was also a hit, actually an even bigger one that "Hungry Eyes."
Aj from Cleveland, GaBesides All By Myself, this was Carmen's only hit.
M from Merrill, Wiyou forgot the word "pangry" which is a small bird that resides in South Dakota

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