| Eyes Without a Face | |
| Cover: | Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol single cover.jpg |
| Caption: | Cover of 12" vinyl single |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Billy Idol |
| Album: | Rebel Yell |
| B-Side: | "The Dead Next Door" |
| Released: | April 1984 (US) 4 June 1984 (UK)[1] |
| Length: | 4:58 (album/video version) 4:08 (single version) |
| Label: | Chrysalis |
| Producer: | Keith Forsey |
| Prev Title: | Rebel Yell |
| Prev Year: | 1983 |
| Next Title: | Flesh for Fantasy |
| Next Year: | 1984 |
"Eyes Without a Face" is a song by the English rock musician Billy Idol, from his second studio album Rebel Yell (1983). It was released in April 1984 as the second single from the album. The song is softer and more ballad-like than most of the album's other singles. It reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Idol's first top-10 hit in the US.[2] The song's title was borrowed from the 1960 horror film known in English as Eyes Without a Face.
In a retrospective review of the single, AllMusic journalist Donald A. Guarisco praised the song and wrote: "The music plays against the dark tone of the lyrics with a ballad-styled melody yearning verses that slowly build emotion and a quietly wrenching chorus that relieves the emotional tension in a cathartic manner."[3]
In his memoir, Dancing with Myself, Idol explained he had always been fascinated with old black and white horror films, including the 1960 French film Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face), directed by Georges Franju. The movie concerns a plastic surgeon who vowed to restore the face of his daughter who had been disfigured in a car accident, and this quest led him to murder victims and graft their facial features onto his daughter in an attempt to restore her beauty. By the end, all that remained of her original face was her eyes, thus making her "eyes without a face". Idol saw some parallel between the movie and the moral decay he experienced living in New York in the 1980s.[4] He said,
In the studio, Idol told guitarist Steve Stevens about the melody, lyrics and basic structure. Stevens fleshed it out with a revolving four-chord pattern (Emaj7–C#m–G#m–B).[5] Stevens then came up with a hard rock guitar riff in the middle of the song. Idol said he improvised some rap verses over the riff because "rap was everywhere in New York at the time, in all the discos and clubs, so it made sense after my croon to start talking streetwise over Steve's supersonic barrage of sound."
Idol's then-girlfriend Perri Lister sings backing vocals during the chorus, repeating the French phrase "Les yeux sans visage" ("Eyes without a face"), the original title of the horror film.
Idol wanted a prominent bass guitar part reminiscent of reggae. He and Stevens had trouble with this part of the song until they met bassist Sal Cuevas, a New York musician best known for working in salsa music and Broadway bands, who performed the part to their satisfaction.
Cashbox said that the song is "more subdued" and "more sensitive" than Idol's previous single "Rebel Yell" and features "a silky acoustic guitar backdrop and a probing melodic bass line" by Puerto Rican New Yorker session bassist Sal Cuevas.[6]
The video was released in June 1984 and subsequently nominated for MTV Video Music Awards for "Best Editing" and "Best Cinematography". It was shot over an exhausting three-day period on a set with fog machines, lighting, and fire sources. Immediately after the shoot, Idol flew to perform in Arizona, where he discovered that his contact lenses had fused to his eyeballs, attributing it to the harsh video shoot and dry plane air. He was taken to a hospital where the lenses were removed and his eyes bandaged for three days, until his scraped corneas grew back.[7]
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[8] | 12 | |
|---|---|---|
| Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[9] | 38 | |
| Italy (Musica e Dischi)[10] | 18 | |
| US Cashbox[11] | 4 |
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[12] | 86 | |
|---|---|---|
| Canada Top Singles (RPM)[13] | 45 | |
| New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[14] | 49 | |
| US Billboard Hot 100[15] | 37 | |
| US Cashbox[16] | 25 | |
| West Germany (Official German Charts)[17] | 60 |
. David Kent (historian) . 1993 . Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 . Illustrated . Australian Chart Book . . 147 . 0-646-11917-6.
