Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes ….Under the Covers Tuesday

More than any other song to that time…this one seemed so different and I knew music was changing in the 80s. I still liked it and I bought the single. Just like with Bonnie Tyler and It’s A Heartache…my first thought when hearing this was Rod Stewart. I really like Carne’s raspy voice more than the pop singers at the time…and now. Now I’d love to hear a duet with Kim Carnes and Bonnie Tyler.

“Bette Davis Eyes” was originally recorded 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.

How Bette Davis Mesmerizes us in The Letter – The Wonderful World of Cinema

With Bette Davis Eyes a major hit in 1981, the then 73-year-old Bette Davis wrote to Carnes, DeShannon, and Weiss to thank them for making her cool in the eyes of her granddaughter. She also thanked them for making her part of modern history. Carnes later performed the song for Davis live as part of a tribute to the actress. The two remained friends until Davis’ death in 1989. Joan Crawford was long gone by this time…I have to wonder what she would have thought or said?

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The producer told the drummer to go out and buy the cheapest drum set he could buy (and you can tell). They ran the drums through a synthesizer called a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and it gave a thin-sounding drum sound. At the time it was different but it would soon become commonplace to replace drum sets altogether with electronic drums…which to me… went way too far. That is why some recordings from that period sound so dated…but that is just me. Keyboardist Bill Cuomo made significant contributions to the chord changes and arrangement, as well as coming up with that synth riff.

Kim Carnes’ version of Bette Davis Eyes came out in 1981. It was the lead single from her sixth studio album, Mistaken Identity. And despite being released at the start of the decade, it was a song that would be played throughout the 80s on radios everywhere.

DeShannon is a Kentucky-born singer-songwriter who’s been on the music scene for most of her life. She started singing regularly on the radio at the age of six and some of her biggest hits include What the World Needs Now is Love and Put a Little Love in Your Heart.

The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #2 in New Zealand, and #10 in the UK in 1981.

Jackie DeShannon: 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.

Bette Davis Eyes

Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips are sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She got Bette Davis eyes
She’ll turn the music on you
You won’t have to think twice
She’s pure as New York snow
She got Bette Davis eyes

And she’ll tease you, she’ll unease you
All the better just to please you
She’s precocious, and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo’s standoff sighs, she’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She’ll lay you on the throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She’ll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll expose you, when she snows you
Off your feet with the crumbs she throws you
She’s ferocious and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she’s a spy, she’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll tease you, she’ll unease you
All the better just to please you
She’s precocious, and she knows just
What it takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she’s a spy, she’s got Bette Davis eyes

She’ll tease you
She’ll unease you
Just to please you
She’s got Bette Davis eyes
She’ll expose you
When she snows you
‘Cause she knows you, she’s got Bette Davis Eyes

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

54 thoughts on “Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes ….Under the Covers Tuesday”

  1. The radio played this one to death. My brothers made fun of it. My youngest brother was still in high school and was one of the first to change the lyrics to Marty Feldman eyes before someone else parodied it. We saw Feldman on TV from Canada in the 70s when they played a British comedy show whose name escapes me at the moment.

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      1. For me, I noticed a change when Gary Numan’s song Cars hit the radio. Also, when Billy Joel released his album Glass Houses soon afterward. I don’t recall if there were electronic drums at play, but I sensed a change in popular music then, even though I followed some of the 70s underground music that brought us the Talking Heads and Blondie, which I think influenced the change.

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      2. You are correct…it was in that one as well…I just didn’t notice it yet.
        I liked the first wave of New Wave…Blondie, The Cars, and a few others.

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      3. I had to go to the Internet to find the name of the television show we saw Marty Feldman in. It’s called At Last the 1948 Show. It had John Cleese and Graham Chapman in it before they were in Monty Python’s Flying Circus. We loved that type of humor. Still do.

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    1. Yes that is me also…Crawford seemed cold and distant to me…and after watching Mommy Dearest…that didnt’ help either.

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    2. Yeah, Jackie had a great voice, great looks, obviously could write but just didn’t seem to get that big song that would break her into the market. Another musical mystery.

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      1. I agree….it wasn’t until Scrooged (love that dark movie) that I knew Put A Little Love In Your Heart.

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    1. Thanks Randy… yes this version will always be the one. I do remember it as a changing point…where electronic sounds started to be popular.

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  7. When Kim Carnes’ song came out, guys would tell their girlfriends they had ‘Bette Davis eyes’, haha. It was a huge hit, but it’s another one that got played so much, I still don’t want to hear it. The bit about the drums was interesting. I agree the synthesized drum sound is an earmark of the 80s, and of something taken too far. It’s surprising how much it stands out to my ears now, in songs I loved at the time.

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    1. Oh yes…that line was used.
      We went to record our first recording session in a guys studio (basement)…our drummer couldn’t show so the guy there offered to play electronic drums…I pissed everyone off and said no…we will wait… So I haven’t changed much since then!

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  8. good post. To me, it’s always been a pretty good single but only that… how in the world it came to be the #1 single of that year and one of the biggest of the rock era totally escapes me. I don’t think it’s even her best track. Still, gotta hand it to her and her producer for having a pulse on the times. It never really occurred to me about the drums, though I did notice it having a lot of keyboards. to me, the same year Phil Collins ‘In the Air tonight’ was the one that made me sit up and take notice and where the drum sounds began to change.

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    1. I noticed those drums off the bat because by this time I was playing a little bit…I didn’t mind because I thought it was a one time thing…oh no…it became common place. I do like that Carnes got to know Davis…and Davis was thrilled about it.

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      2. Make it a Rod Stewart, Bonnie Tyler, and Kim Carnes song lol…it would be hard telling one from another.

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  9. I loved the song when it came out, and I still love it now. I don’t recall it belong overplayed on the UK radio, though I was quite selective when listening to the radio, so it still sounds fresh to my ears. Oh, and I wonder what Ms. Crawford thoughts would have been on the Blue Oyster Cult song about her? 🤘😁

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    1. I like them both also. As you probably know I have a dislike for the 80s because of that thin over production…but I have to say…I like this one.

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  11. Jackie’s version is so different than Carnes! I appreciate seeing all of the lyrics. This knocks me right over:
    “She’ll take a tumble on you
    Roll you like you were dice
    Until you come out blue”

    I like Jackie’s version but also love how Carnes covers it. Didn’t realize she was from KY! For some reason thought she was from NYC. About Bette Davis, I was mesmerized by her as a kid. Everything and everyone else blurred on the screen when she was on it. One of THE GREATS of all time of the cinema. In her younger years she was dazzling and in later years her thriller/creepy roles were haunting.

    Lots of good info in this post, Max.

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    1. Thanks Lisa…yes Davis was great. I didn’t know some of the words such as the opening line…I had no idea she mentioned Jean Harlow….
      I always liked her voice….give me a rough voice female singer and I love it.

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      2. I’ve seen some of her classic movies (I liked All About Eve) and she was just so natural.
        I first remember her on Return to Witch Mountain….I loved that series as a kid.

        I remember all of a sudden she was being interviewied again by everyone after this song. She did a complete show interivew with Dick Cavett…she was no one’s fool… and very funny.

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  12. There is quite a diferene between Jackie’s and Kim’s version, and both are good in their own way. The way Jackie does it is good for a non-single album track, but Kim’s is definitely recorded to be a single.

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  13. Jackie’s version is kinda mid-tempo by-the-book album track production-wise. Carnes’s version got the whole kit and caboodle including the kitchen sink (and synth) thrown at it, but it somehow worked.

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  14. I love Kim Carnes’ version of “Bette Davis Eyes.” Much of that has to do with Carnes’ scratchy vocals. She also recorded a cool cover of the Box Tops’ “Cry Like a Baby”. It was on the album that preceded “Mistaken Identity.”

    BTW, I don’t believe I had ever heard Jackie DeShannon’s original of “Bette Davis Eyes” – not bad either, though I prefer Kim Carnes.

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    2. I love her voice….any female voice that is scratchy then I’m there! I’ll check that song out by her…that will be interesting.
      DeShannon’s version is like a 40s or 50s version…I like it…but it’s not as catchy as Carnes.

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  15. I thought this would have been too ‘eighties’ for you! I had no idea it was a cover – there are quite a few songs I’ve liked and then discovered that Jackie de Shannon had recorded them originally.

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    1. See I slip up sometimes lol. I bought the single and I remember thinking…this is different…but soon after…it wasn’t anymore because everyone copied it.
      Jackie DeShannon is great…I like her version also.

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      2. I didn’t know her til the end of the 80s because of the movie Scrooged when they used Put A Little Love In Your Heart.

        Yep…that song was a red flag on what was coming.

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  16. Pingback: Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes ….Under the Covers Tuesday – MobsterTiger
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  18. I wrote about this song a year ago last June, after watching “Now, Voyager”. In my own research about the song, I did not see that Jackie DeShannon was inspired to write it after watching the classic Bette Davis movie. The song was played to death, but unlike many other songs that were, I never got sick of hearing it.

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  19. Classic single with impeccable credentials. I love it still, and it fit right in with the booming UK New Romantic/synth/New Wave scene and sounded right of the moment, along with the new exciting sounds hitting the UK charts. On drums, I like real drums and I like programmed beats, they both have their plusses and dance music especially sounds great with synth beats. I offer up the genius of I Feel Love for one, and In The Air Tonight for the other and rest my case 🙂

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    1. Well I’ve never been a dancer…so that is probably why they irratate me to death…but…on this song it fits and it was still quite new at the time. My biggest problem is they over used them in that decade.

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