Kim Carnes: Bette Davis Eyes (1981)
The haunting eyes of Bette Davis — once you see them, you never forget. Modern cinema has lost something valuable — eyes, expression, and the raw emotions of the human face. These mattered in the era before CGI, eye-catching SFX, and even before colour was injected into the movies.
No less mesmerising is the voice of Kim Carnes singing about a girl to be loved and hated simultaneously due to her difficult, however tantalising character. Just like Mildred from “Of Human Bondage”, beautifully portrayed by Davis. This fragment shows why she was described as one of the best actresses of her time. Shivers!
With the unforgettable voice and no less significant synth riff, the song was a number-one hit in 1981 and one of the era-defining acts of the early ’80s. A widely played video by the just-launched MTV helped consolidate that status.
It was, unfortunately, the pinnacle of Carnes’s singing career, and she has never returned to similar popularity, even though she did pretty well as a singer and songwriter. Later she appeared on the hit list a few times (but never again in the Top 10 of Billboard 100).
The album title is “Mistaken Identity”, which is ironically noteworthy. I must confess that I, for ages, thought this was a young Rod Stewart who sings. I feel that I was not alone in making that mistake. Well, my apologies to Kim and Rod and my only excuse lies in the poor quality of my early sound system and lack of Wikipedia or Shazaam to check. Or maybe Rod and Kim, both born in 1945, were lost twins? Rod Stewart actually did sing this song, but only once, as late as 2004.
For the chronicer’s duty, let’s note that Jackie DeShannon originally recorded this song in 1974. It has its charm, but it pales in comparison to Carnes and her production team’s masterpiece.
And for a modern blogger’s duty (attention is what we all fight for ;)), let me also mention Taylor Swift, who sang this during her 2011 Speak Now World Tour. And, well, I have a usual problem with Taylor here. She is, for sure, a great singer, but she perhaps doesn’t have this irresistible thing that made Carnes’s version immortal.
Cheers, life is too short to listen to bad music.
PW
/AI note: grammar was corrected via Grammarly/
