“Bette Davis Eyes” (Kim Carnes)

Today’s classic song of the day is from 1981, the year that MTV launched. “Bette Davis Eyes,” as performed by Kim Carnes, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of May 15 and stayed there for nine non-consecutive weeks. The track ended up being a #1 hit in 21 countries and was Billboard’s #1 song for the entire year of 1981. It won Grammy awards for both Song of the Year and Record of the Year. The song’s video, directed by Australian film director Russell Mulcahy (Highlander, Ricochet, The Shadow), got a ton of airplay on MTV, which certainly helped its success.

“Bette Davis Eyes” is a great tune, written seven years earlier (in 1974) by Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss. It was the best-selling song of Jackie’s entire career, topping her own previous best, “Put a Little Love in Your Heart,” a #4 hit for herself in 1969. I particularly like the vivid movie-star imagery: not only does the girl have “Bette Davis eyes,” her hair is “Harlow gold” and she has “Greta Garbo’s stand-off sighs.” The protagonist is also “pure as New York snow,” which probably explains how she knows “what it takes to make a pro blush.” This is one tough broad.

Ms. DeShannon recalls how the song came about:

“We loved Bette Davis. We were always talking about what great movies and how we love her. Anyway, Donna had this idea and she brought a lot of papers over one day. She said ‘Do you think you can make anything out of this?’ So I kind of went through and looked at some lyrics and put some things together and we wrote this song.”

When Jackie DeShannon first recorded “Bette Davis Eyes” in 1974, she did it as a bluesy shuffle. Kim Carnes’ producer, Val Garay (who also worked with Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond, the Motels, Mr. Big, Dolly Parton, and Pablo Cruise), reinvented the song as a synth-laden New Wave production with e-drum handclaps. The new arrangement worked, pairing a really great tune with a sound that pretty much defined the era. Kim Carnes’ raspy vocals added the perfect contrast to the slick synths, and you end up with a song that people still know today.

By the way, Kim Carnes was the kind of overnight sensation who’d been around for awhile. She was an ancient 35 years old when she recorded “Bette Davis Eyes,” which put her well beyond the emerging MTV demographic. Ms. Carnes had made her bones back in the ’60s singing with the New Christy Minstrels, of all people, which is where she first met Kenny Rogers, with whom she had a 1980 hit with the duet, “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.” She was a songwriter herself, penning tunes for Kenny and other artists in the ’70s. Back in 1971 she had sung the closing theme for the movie Vanishing Point. In 1980, after that duet with Mr. Rogers, she also had a top ten hit with a cover of Smokey Robinson’s “More Love.” But it’s “Bette Davis Eyes” for which she’ll be most remembered, and justifiably so. It truly is a memorable creation.

Both Kim Carnes and Jackie DeShannon are still alive and active today. Ms. Carnes, 78, lives in Nashville with her husband of 56 years and is still recording and performing; her most recent recording was a cover of “Under My Thumb” for the 2015 compilation album, 80s Re:Covered. Ms. DeShannon, 82, lives in Beverly Hills with her husband of 47 years; you can hear her contributions to the SiriusXM show, Breakfast with the Beatles, every week on a satellite radio near you.

Bette Davis passed in October of 1989, aged 81. She was 73 when the song named after her was a hit and she wrote letters to Carnes, Weiss, and DeShannon to thank them for making her “a part of modern times.” After their Grammy wins, Ms. Davis sent them roses.