Eyes Without A Face

Album

Rebel Yell

Label

Chrysalis Records

Genre

New wave

Duration

8:00

Composer(s)

William Broad;Steve Stevens

Entered Chart

May 5, 1984

Peak Date

Jul 14, 1984

Released

June 1984

Recorded

Studio Studio A, Electric Lady Studios[1] (New York, New York)

Catalog #

Chrysalis 4-42786

B-Side

Blue Highway

Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) is the title to a chillingly horrific yet classically poetic 1960 film from acclaimed French director Georges Franju. In it, a gifted plastic surgeon is involved in a near fatal auto accident which horribly disfigures the once beautiful face of his beloved daughter. Along with his assistant, he abducts young women so that he may surgically remove their facial features and graft their beauty onto that of his daughter's grotesque countenance. More than the typical Mad Scientist gore flick of the "horror" genre in movies, it deals with real humanistic themes rather than the loud crash and bang after a minute long string instrument is played in a high key. The arrogance, vanity, and what we ultimately come to realize, guilt of the father who now treats his daughter as a sort of porcelain doll with interchangeable parts. Though he supposedly loves her so, what he does in effect, is dehumanize her for the sake of his own personal redemption. The song "Eyes Without a Face" uses similar imagery for effect. However, he tackles the concept of the modern romance and uses the same metaphors the movie used to show the absence of humanity and how cold and callous the modern world has grown to be. All that we (in the song's case "we" have the role of the narrator) have endured getting here has made us like the doctor. While the daughter has become eyes without a face (she wears a mask a la Halloween's Michael Myers and the only visible part of her face are her eyes), the doctor has become a face without eyes. He has blinded himself to the hideousness that he has involved himself, his family, and his poor victims in. While the woman in the relationship in the Billy Idol song is "Eyes Without a Face," the narrator has become the face without the eyes. Wrapped in guilt for what once was a perfect love, he must face his own pettiness and the fact that he has forever altered his partner and their relationship. >> The soft female vocals in the song are singing "les yeux sans visage," which is French for "eyes without a face." For another '80s song with female backing in French, check out "Games Without Frontiers." The video was directed by David Mallet, who also did Idol's "White Wedding" clip. Mallet once again accented the video with three girls slapping their own butts in time to the music. Idol's memories of the video are painful ones. His contact lenses dried out during the shoot, and when he fell asleep on a flight to his next gig in Arizona, they fused to his eyes. He had to get his corneas scraped at a hospital and wear bandages on his eyes for three days. The French vocals on this track were sung by Idol's girlfriend, the dancer Perri Lister, who was part of a performance group called Hot Gossip. Lister appeared in the video for this song and three others by Idol: "White Wedding," "Rebel Yell" and "Hot In The City." Judi Dozier and Steve Stevens did the keyboards and synth programming on this track. The big clapping sound was generated with a Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer, and the strings came from a Prophet V. This features the sound of a vibraslap chattering throughout the mix. The percussion instrument mimics the sound of a jawbone, a similar apparatus that was made from the dried jawbone of a donkey (and similar animals) and was struck so the vibration would rattle the loose teeth in their sockets.

I'm all out of hope
One more bad break
Could bring a fall

When I'm far from home
Don't call me on the phone
To tell me you're alone

It's easy to deceive
It's easy to tease
But hard to get release

(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
Got no human grace
You're eyes without a face

I spend so much time
Believing all the lies
Keep the dream alive

Now it makes me sad
It makes me mad at truth
For loving what was you

(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
Got no human grace
You're eyes without a face (face, face, face)

When you hear the music, you make a dip
Into someone else's pocket then make a slip
Steal a car and go to Las Vegas
Ooh, the gigolo pool

Hanging out by the state line
Turning holy water into wine
Drinkin' it down, oh, oh-oh, ow

I'm on a bus on a psychedelic trip
Reading murder books, tryin' to stay hip
I'm thinkin' of you, you're out there, so
Say your prayers
Say your prayers
Say your prayers (ooh)

Now I close my eyes
And I wonder why
I don't despise

Now all I can do
Love what was once
So alive in you
But it's gone from your eyes
I better realize

(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
(Les yeux sans visage)
Eyes without a face
Got no human grace
You're eyes without a face

Such a human waste
You're eyes without a face (face, face, face)

And now it's getting worse