"Lyin' Eyes" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Eagles | ||||
from the album One of These Nights | ||||
B-side | "Too Many Hands" | |||
Released | August 9, 1975 | |||
Recorded | January 1975 Hollywood, California | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 4:14 (single edit) 6:22 (album version) | |||
Label | Asylum | |||
Songwriter(s) | Don Henley, Glenn Frey | |||
Producer(s) | Bill Szymczyk | |||
Eagles singles chronology | ||||
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"Lyin' Eyes" is a song written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey and recorded in 1975 by the American rock band 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 Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus for "Lyin' Eyes", and were nominated for Record of the Year.
The title and idea for the song came when Glenn Frey and Don Henley were in their favorite Los Angeles 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." [5] [6] 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 that "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." [7]
"Lyin' Eyes" is the only song on the One of These Nights album that Frey sang solo lead on (he shared lead vocals with Henley on "After the Thrill Is Gone"). [8] The song was released as the second single from the album and reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, behind “Island Girl” by Elton John. [9] "Lyin' Eyes" 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. [10]
Billboard described the song as "a country flavored story of a girl who drives across town daily to meet someone a bit more suited to her than the one she lives with," and praised the instrumentals and harmony vocals. [11] Cash Box said that "the instrumentation is lightly acoustic, with a sobbing pedal steel lacing together the plaintive lead vocal and chorus" and mentioned "the Eagles' uncanny talent for fitting hit-making riffs together." [12] Billboard and Rolling Stone both ranked "Lyin' Eyes" as the Eagles' seventh-greatest song. [13] [14]
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.
Additional musician
Chart (1975) | Peak position |
---|---|
Canada Top Singles ( RPM ) [16] | 19 |
Canada Adult Contemporary ( RPM ) [17] | 4 |
Canada Country Tracks ( RPM ) [18] | 20 |
Ireland (IRMA) [19] | 3 |
Netherlands (Single Top 100) [20] | 23 |
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) [21] | 7 |
UK Singles (OCC) [22] | 23 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [23] | 2 |
US Adult Contemporary ( Billboard ) [24] | 3 |
US Hot Country Songs ( Billboard ) [25] | 8 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom (BPI) [26] | Silver | 200,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles, six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s in North America and are one of the world's best-selling music artists, having sold more than 200 million records worldwide, including 100 million sold in the US alone. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and were ranked number 75 on Rolling Stone's 2010 list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Founding members Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner had all been recruited by Linda Ronstadt as band members, some touring with her, and all playing on her self-titled third solo studio album (1972), before venturing out on their own as the Eagles on David Geffen's new Asylum Records label.
Glenn Lewis Frey was an American musician. He was a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the co-lead singer and frontman for Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don Henley, with whom he wrote most of Eagles' material. Frey played guitar and keyboards as well as singing lead vocals on songs such as "Take It Easy", "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Tequila Sunrise", "Already Gone", "James Dean", "Lyin' Eyes", "New Kid in Town", and "Heartache Tonight".
One of These Nights is the fourth studio album by American rock band the Eagles, released on June 10, 1975. The album was the band's commercial breakthrough, transforming them into international superstars. In July that year, the record became the Eagles' first number one album on Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, yielding three Top 10 singles: "One of These Nights", "Lyin' Eyes" and "Take It to the Limit". Its title song is the group's second number one single on the Billboard Hot 100. The album sold four million copies and received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. A single from the album, "Lyin' Eyes", was also nominated for Record of the Year, and won the Eagles' first Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals at the 18th Annual Grammy Awards in 1976. The band embarked on the worldwide One of These Nights tour to promote the album.
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