Remembering When a 70s Cover Song Helped Define the New Sound of the 80s in 1981

The 80s took a little bit of time to establish its own musical identity. One of the first big hits of the decade to help distinguish it from what came before was “Bette Davis Eyes”, the song by Kim Carnes that put a nine-week stranglehold on the US No. 1 pop chart spot in 1981.

Other 80s artists would soon build upon the sound that Carnes’ song established. Which was a bit ironic, since “Bette Davis Eyes” was a cover of a song from 1974.

A Forgotten Original

Jackie DeShannon stood out among successful female solo artists of the 60s in that she often wrote her own material. Yet when the singer-songwriter movement hit its stride in the early 70s, DeShannon’s commercial peak had largely passed.

As such, the first version of “Bette Davis Eyes”, released by DeShannon on her 1975 album New Arrangement, didn’t receive a lot of notice. DeShannon had written the song the previous year with Donna Weiss.

Kim Carnes first got wind of the song in the late 70s. She loved the lyrics, even as she realized that she wanted to try something different with the arrangement. Carnes initially wanted to include the song on her 1980 album Romance Dance, but there was an issue involving the publishing. With that worked out, she went to work on the track for her 1981 release Mistaken Identity.

The “Eyes” Have It

Carnes had become fascinated with the British New Romantic movement that was all the rage overseas in the early 80s. Many of the artists at the forefront of that trend hadn’t yet crossed over to American shores when Carnes recorded “Bette Davis Eyes”. That gave her an opportunity to blaze trails with the song in America.

Instead of the jaunty, major-key style of DeShannon’s version, Carnes wanted something sleeker, moodier, more seductive and more dangerous all at once. A keyboard part played by her band member Bill Cuomo unlocked the track after Carnes and producer Val Garay had struggled with it for a few days.

Other pieces of the puzzle fell into place, including the synthetic “trash” drum that you hear walloping throughout the song. When Carnes finished with the track, others who heard it were wowed. But her label (EMI) heard the song as a misfire, insisting that Carnes should shelve it.

Carnes’ Instinct

In the book Playing Back The 80s: A Decade Of Unstoppable Hits, Carnes told this author how she had to fight for the track:

“I said, ‘Put it all on me. I’ll take the full responsibility. Please release this.’ I begged every day because I thought if I didn’t, somebody else is gonna hear it, do it, and it’ll just be horrendous if I lose this. So finally, I think they tired of me begging.”

The massive success of “Bette Davis Eyes” proved Carnes’ instincts right. You can make the argument that no other song of the early 80s helped the decade step out of the shadow of the decade before it. And many fans of that era grooving to it remained none the wiser that these brave new sounds were emanating from a seven-year-old song.

(Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images)