B-side "Miss You Tonight" Genre New wave
soft rock | Recorded January 1981 Length 3:48 | |
Released March 10, 1981 (1981-03-10) Format 7-inch single
12-inch single extended mix | ||
"Bette Davis Eyes" is a song written and composed by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon, and made popular by American singer Kim Carnes. DeShannon recorded it in 1974; Carnes's 1981 version spent nine weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Billboard's biggest hit of the entire year for 1981. It was also her only Top 40 hit on the UK Singles Chart, getting to No. 10. The 1981 recording won the 1982 Grammy Awards for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
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History
The song was written and composed in 1974 by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon. DeShannon recorded the song that same year on her album New Arrangement. In this original incarnation, the track is performed in an "R&B lite" arrangement, featuring a prominent uptempo piano part, as well as flourishes of pedal steel guitar and horns. However, it was not until 1981, when Kim Carnes recorded her version of the song in a radically different synthesizer-based arrangement, that "Bette Davis Eyes" became a commercial success.
The Carnes version spent nine non-consecutive weeks on top of the US Billboard Hot 100 (interrupted for one week by the "Stars on 45 Medley") and was Billboard's biggest hit of the year for 1981. The single also reached No. 5 on Billboard's Top Tracks charts and No. 26 on the Dance charts. The song won the Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The song was also a number one hit in 21 countries and peaked at number 10 in the United Kingdom, her only Top 40 hit there to date.
According to producer Val Garay, the original demo of the tune that was brought to him sounded like "a Leon Russell track, with this beer-barrel polka piano part." The demo can be heard in a Val Garay interview on TAXI TV at 21:50. Keyboardist Bill Cuomo came up with the signature synth riff, using the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer, which now defines Carnes's version. The song was recorded in the studio on the first take.
Bette Davis wrote letters to Carnes, Weiss, and DeShannon to thank all three of them for making her "a part of modern times," and said her grandson now looked up to her. After their Grammy wins, Davis sent them roses as well.
The song was ranked at number 12 on Billboard's list of the top 100 songs in the first 50 years of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and at number one of the biggest hits of the 1980s. Cleopatra Records released a re-recording of the song as a single in 2007.
The song was used in the 2015 horror comedy film The Final Girls, starring Taissa Farmiga and Malin Åkerman. It also features briefly in the romantic comedy film Austenland.
Other versions
Music video
The video opens in a dance hall with a black-draped leaning figure. The drape opens to reveal Kim Carnes wearing sunglasses as she sings the first verse. In the first chorus, she performs with a band; halfway dancers enter the hall. In the second verse, the dancers make slapping and floor-pounding dance motions. They disappear and reappear in the second chorus. The song finishes with the dancers making dance motions while approaching Carnes; the band is already gone when the video ends with the black-draped leaning figure. A shadowed silhouette of Bette Davis smoking a cigarette appears throughout the video. The video was directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy.
Lyrics
There is much confusion over whether the lyrics are "she knows just what it takes to make a crow blush" or "... pro blush". Jackie DeShannon sings "crow" in her version, and Kim Carnes recorded it as "pro" from a mistranscription of the lyrics. This error has proliferated through numerous cover versions. The phrase "could make a crow blush" is an early 20th-century Midwestern United States colloquialism meaning that one could unease someone with little effort, and the arranger of Carnes's version was unfamiliar with the term. Others have misheard the lyrics as "she knows just what it takes to makes a girl blush," suggesting a bisexual undertone, although this was unintended by either DeShannon or Weiss.