Lyin' Eyes

"Lyin' Eyes"
Single by Eagles
from the album One of These Nights
B-side "Too Many Hands"
Released September 1975
Format 7-inch single
Recorded January 1975
Hollywood, California
Genre Country rock,[1] soft rock[2]
Length 4:14 (single edit)
6:22 (album version)
Label Asylum
Songwriter(s) Don Henley, Glenn Frey
Producer(s) Bill Szymczyk
Eagles singles chronology
"One of These Nights"
(1975)		 "Lyin' Eyes"
(1975)		 "Take It to the Limit"
(1975)

"One of These Nights"
(1975)		 "Lyin' Eyes"
(1975)		 "Take It to the Limit"
(1975)

"Lyin' Eyes" is a song written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey and recorded in 1975 by the American rock band the Eagles, with Frey singing lead vocals. It was the second single from their album One of These Nights, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 8 on the Billboard Country chart. It remained their only top 40 country hit until "How Long" in 2007–2008.

The Eagles received a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Group for "Lyin' Eyes", and were nominated for Record of the Year.

Background

The title and idea for the song came when Glenn Frey and Don Henley were in their favorite LA restaurant/bar Dan Tana's which was frequented by many beautiful women, and they started talking about beautiful women who were cheating on their husbands. They saw a beautiful young woman with a fat and much older wealthy man, and Frey said: "She can't even hide those lyin' eyes."[3][4] According to Henley, Frey was the main writer of the song, although he had some input with the verses and the music. The song was written when Frey and Henley were sharing a house in Trousdale, Beverly Hills. Frey said of the writing of the song: "...the story had always been there. I don’t want to say it wrote itself, but once we started working on it, there were no sticking points. Lyrics just kept coming out, and that’s not always the way songs get written."[5] During the Eagles 2013 concert tour, Frey stated it was written in just two evenings.

The song was released as the second single from One of These Nights, and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single also crossed over to the Country chart where it reached No. 8, their first on that chart and a feat few rock bands could have achieved at that time.[6]

The single version of the song is shortened considerably from the album version, removing the entire second verse, the second chorus and four lines in the middle of the third verse.

Covers

Among the many covers of "Lyin' Eyes" are Lynn Anderson's 1976 recording and Kenny Rankin's 1980 version on his After The Roses album. Diamond Rio also covered the song on the 1993 compilation Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles. Dolly Parton has long cited the song as a personal favorite; she performed it on her 1976 variety show Dolly!

"Lyin' Eyes" is included on the Urban Cowboy soundtrack. It plays in the background in the diner scene when Sissy (Debra Winger) gets angry at Bud (John Travolta) for saying "Hello" to Jerry Hall's character.

Personnel

Chart performance

Chart (1975) Peak
position
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[8] 19
Canada Adult Contemporary (RPM)[9] 4
Canada Country Tracks (RPM)[10] 20
Ireland (IRMA)[11] 3
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[12] 23
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[13] 7
UK Singles (Official Charts Company)[14] 23
US Billboard Hot 100[15] 2
US Adult Contemporary (Billboard)[16] 3
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles 8

References

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