Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

Album

Remember When?

Label

Mercury Records

Genre

Show Tunes

Media Type

45

Duration

2:40

Composer(s)

Ottoe Harbach;Jerome Kern

Entered Chart

Nov 17, 1958

Peak Date

Jan 19, 1959

Released

Nov 1958

Recorded

Unknown

Catalog #

Mercury 71383X45

B-Side

No Matter What You Are

Original Artist

Gertrude Niesen

This was written in 1933 for the musical Roberta, starring Bob Hope. The lyrics were written by Otto Harbach and the music by Jerome Kern. In 1934, four different recordings charted: Paul Whiteman #1, Leo Reisman #3, Emil Coleman #4, and Ruth Etting #15. This version by The Platters is on the Hearts in Atlantis soundtrack. Nu Colours recorded a version that is featured on the Four Weddings And A Funeral soundtrack, and this song also appeared in the film Always by Stephen Spielberg. >> Although The Platters recording has become the definitive version, recordings have been made by Artie Shaw (1941), Harry Belafonte (1950), Sarah Vaughan, and others. The group Blue Haze remade this in 1973. Their version hit #27 on the US Chart. The Jerry Garcia Band recorded this for the 1995 Smoke soundtrack. Director Wayne Wang made a video for the song featuring the band and Ashley Judd, one of the movie's stars. This was used in the finale to the 1995 season of the British drama serial London's Burning, which led to cast member John Alford scoring a UK hit with it in February 1996. Alford's version reached #13, which is below the chart position achieved by the Platters, but ahead of versions by Bryan Ferry (#17 in 1974) and Blue Haze (#32 in 1972). >>

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
I of course replied
Something here inside cannot be denied
They said "someday you'll find all who love are blind"
When your heart's on fire,
You must realize, smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt my love
Yet today my love has flown away,
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
So I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies, smoke gets in your eyes

(Smoke gets in your eyes, smoke gets in your eyes)

Smoke gets in your eyes