“Bette Davis Eyes” hit #1 for the first of 9 weeks

Bette Davis Eyes Kim Carnes

Writer(s): Jackie DeShannon, Donna Weiss (see lyrics here) First Charted: March 28, 1981 Peak: 19 US, 15 CB, 15 HR, 15 RR, 15 AC, 5 AR, 10 UK, 2 CN, 15 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.2 UK, 2.51 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): 2.0 radio, 83.0 video, 166.28 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Sometimes it takes a strange mix of ingredients to make a hit song. In this case, take a memorable keyboard synth line, a female singer whose raspy voice leads some to mistaken her as Rod Stewart, SF and a song with mysterious lyrics referencing an iconic movie star known for bugged-out eyes due to a disorder which causes an overproduction of the thyroid. SF Songwriter Donna Weiss says part of this song’s inspiration came from a Bette Davis movie – she thinks it was Jezebel – but has remained mum about any further inspiration than that. FB She wrote the lyrics while Jackie DeShannon, whose “What the World Needs Now Is Now” and “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” were both top tens, wrote most of the music. FB DeShannon recorded a honky-tonk version of the song for her 1975 album New Arrangement. When Carnes was given the song, she wasn’t convinced it had hit potential. FB However, when her synthesizer player, Bill Cuomo, reworked the track into a new-wavish pop song, BB Carnes was sold. So was the record buying public – it hit #1 in 31 countries WK and topped 1981’s year-end Hot 100 in the U.S. BB Among the song’s fans was Davis herself. She wrote letters to Carnes and the songwriters to thank them for being made “part of modern times.” FB Weiss says that Davis shared that because of the song “her grandson looked up to her and respected her” FB because it was cool that she’d had a song written about her. Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Kim Carnes DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Jackie DeShannon BB Billboard (9/08). “All-Time Hot 100” FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 543. Last updated 10/29/2022.

Squeeze East Side Story released

East Side Story Squeeze

Released: May 15, 1981 Peak: 44 US, 19 UK, 29 CN, -- AU Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Genre: new wave

Tracks: Click on a song title for more details. In Quintessence [2:55] Someone Else’s Heart [3:00] Tempted [4:00] Piccadilly [3:26] There’s No Tomorrow [3:27] Heaven [3:49] Woman’s World [3:42] Is That Love? [2:31] F-Hole [4:41] Labelled With Love [4:44] Someone Else’s Bell [3:08] Mumbo Jumbo [3:13] Vanity Fair [3:09] Messed Around [2:42] Total Running Time: 49:03 The Players: Chris Difford (lyrics, rhythm guitar, backing vocals, lead vocal on “Someone Else’s Heart” and “Heaven”) Glenn Tilbrook (vocals, guitar, keyboards) Paul Carrack (keyboards, backing vocals, lead vocal on “Tempted”) John Bentley (bass, backing vocals) Gilson Lavis (drums)

Rating: 4.229 out of 5.00 (average of 22 ratings) Quotable: “The band’s most diverse but also their most creatively rewarding album to date.” – Chris Woodstra, AllMusic.com Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album “Rising above the new wave bands of the era, Squeeze quickly abandoned their early punk/experimental roots and firmly embraced a Beatle-influenced pop sensibility, albeit with an updated musical sound. While the two preceding albums, Cool for Cats and Argybargy, had some great moments, East Side Story was their most ambitious effort, with a wide range of musical styles and some of their best tracks.” PK CultureSonar.com called it “the band’s undisputed masterpiece and one of the finest albums of the decade.” CS ”It's a rare pop band that can fit the word quintessence neatly into a song, but the duo of Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook – the heart of Squeeze--do so with ease.” AZ “The songs are imaginative, compassionate, and of course hooky…the music is quite punchy.” RC “There’s a good reason that they've been hailed as the best British songwriting team since Lennon and McCartney, and if they've never scaled the heights of fame – or of grandeur – that their forebears did, well, that’s OK.” AZ The album is “strong, buoyed by the group's bouncy outlook, Costello and co-producer Roger Bechiran’s prodding the group in new directions, and hints of the new-wave-influenced sound Squeeze would develop years later on Babylon and On.” AZ “East Side Story was originally planned as a double album with each side produced by a different ‘hot’ producer – Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, and Paul McCartney were the proposed lineup. And while only…Costello…ended up doing the job, save for one track by Edmunds, Costello’s push for decidedly un-Squeeze-like material and sympathetic production style resulted in not only the band's most diverse but also their most creatively rewarding album to date.” AM In fact, Costello “coaxes out what might be their best effort.” JA Notes The 1997 UK re-release added bonus tracks “The Axe Has Now Fallen” and “Looking for a Love.” The Songs ”East Side Story is a solid, thoroughly enjoyable album with enough variety to keep it fresh for years to come.” PK The album is “definitely packed with the band’s trademark bouncy Brit-pop numbers,” AM “most notably the feel-good pure-pop of Piccadilly, In Quintessence…and Mumbo Jumbo.” However, “the standouts come from the unexpected turns” AM such as “the trippy near-psychedelia of There's No Tomorrow” AM and “the lush and delicate…Vanity Fair.” AM PK There’s also the “sweet poignancy of Woman World and Is That Love.” PK Here’s a breakdown of each of the individual songs.

In Quintessence Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) First Charted: 6/6/1981 Peak: 27 CL, 39 AR, 6 CO, 23 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 1.50 streaming About the Song: While this wasn’t released as a single, it was used as a promo and became a minor hit at album rock radio.

Someone Else’s Heart Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 34 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.49 streaming

Tempted Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook (see lyrics here) Released: 7/10/1981 (single), East Side Story (1981), 45s and Under (1982), Piccadilly Collection (1996), Greatest Hits (2001), Big Squeeze (2002), Essential (2007) B-Side: “Yap Yap Yap” First Charted: 6/20/1981 Peak: 49 BB, 50 CB, 52 HR, 3 CL, 8 AR, 1 CO, 41 UK, 45 Cn, 95 AU, 1 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 5.12 video, 73.31 streaming

Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Song: When I was in college in the mid-‘80s, I developed a habit of raiding people’s music collections. At times, I’d walk out of their dorm rooms with a handful of cassettes (yep – I lived through the days before CDs or mp3s existed) minutes after I’d met them. One of my roommates’ friends got me to open up to harder-edged fare like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Rush that I’d steered away from in high school. However, I also discovered the sound that comes closest to my tastes – college rock. Before Nirvana and Pearl Jam ushered in the grunge movement and subsequent mainstreaming of alternative rock, the genre was marked by bands like U2, R.E.M., INXS, The Cure, and Depeche Mode when they were still niche bands. My greatest discovery, though, was Squeeze. A friend’s girlfriend had a copy of the band’s 45’s and Under compilation. It made me a lifelong fan of the band. The song I knew best was “Tempted,” which has been hailed as “a very good power pop song.” RR With its “soulful groove” AM it has become the band’s signature song, it wasn’t a big chart hit, stalling on both the UK and US charts outside the top 40. The song’s success over the years has been aided by its use in commercials for Burger King and Heineken. It was also featured in the 1994 movie Reality Bites. “Even though the music is classic Squeeze, as are the lyrics about cheating on your partner and knowing you screwed it all up” CR it isn’t Chris Difford or Glenn Tilbrook – the band’s staples throughout their 50-year history – who take the lead on the song. ”In one of the smartest free transfer deals ever, Squeeze were able to plug the massive midfield gap left by the departing Jools Holland with the nimble-fingered Paul Carrack,” HE who sings and co-writes (along with Tilbrook and Elvis Costello), a musical journeyman who also sang with Ace (“How Long”) and later for Mike + the Mechanics (“Silent Running,” “The Living Years”). He served as the keyboardist on East Side Story and “left an indelible impression with his soulful emoting on “Tempted.’” CS Tilbrook does, however, trade a few lines in the second verse with Elvis Costello, who co-produced the track. WK Chris Difford wrote the lyrics while in a cab. As he said, “I just wrote down what I saw and how I felt as we wormed our way through the traffic. I also must have anticipated a good time on tour as the chorus suggests.” SF Glenn Tilbrook said, “It was a sort of breakthrough song for us…It was when we grew up, really, as a band.” SF Carrack said, “They’d actually recorded a version of that song before I was on board. Dave Edmunds produced it, and it was completely different…The song was in the can…When we had some downtime and played ‘Tempted’ but in that slow, soulful, Motown groove. Elvis Costello, who was producing, ran in and said, ‘Let’s put this down on tape!’ So, we did, and Elvis said ‘Paul, you should sing it.’”GR

Piccadilly Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.60 streaming

There’s No Tomorrow Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 34 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.15 streaming

Heaven Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 23 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.15 streaming About the Song: “The warped organ on Heaven bespeaks divine intervention.” RC

Woman’s World Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 14 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.23 streaming About the Song: The diversity of sound on East Side Story is what makes the album special. This was one of the slightly more conventional Squeeze-sounding songs, a slower tempo tune that felt like it could easily have worked as a single. “This depiction of a harried housewife is typically winning. Difford’s words capture all of the frustration of an underappreciated woman, while Tilbrook’s twisting melody earns her the sympathy that her family rarely displays.” CS

Is That Love? Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: 5/1/1981 (single), East Side Story (1981), 45s and Under (1982), Greatest Hits (2001), Big Squeeze (2002), Essential (2007) B-Side: “Trust” Peak: 39 CL, 16 CO, 35 UK, 12 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.41 video, 5.03 streaming About the Song: The lead single from East Side Story reached the top 40 in the UK. “Brilliant little Beatles-knock-off from Squeeze. Timed at under two minutes, it’s a mini-masterpiece of concision yet still has time for a better-better-better hook in the verse, deft guitar solo by Tillbrook, a middle-eight worthy of McCartney himself and a neat slowed-down finish.” RR “The lyrics are about the nature of love in the ups and downs of relationships, sparked by Chris Difford’s then-recent wedding.” GR He said, “I remember being in the bathroom and seeing Cindy’s wedding ring next to the soap, which inspired me to write the lyric. I don’t think it was particularly about our marriage, but it started off a sequence of ideas in my head.” WK1 He also said, “It was a great live number and sums up being on the road and having fun. It’s a comfortable pair of jeans as a song.” WK1 Glenn Tilbrook said they originally recorded it as a mid-tempo track but when it wasn’t working, they “sped it up and it made more sense like that.” WK He also said he was consciously influenced by the Beatles on the track and that the ending of the song was producer Elvis Costello’s idea. Costello played the piano part that accompanied the song. WK1

F-Hole Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.14 streaming

Labelled with Love Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: 9/25/1981 (single), East Side Story (1981), 45s and Under (1982), Greatest Hits (2001), Big Squeeze (2002), Essential (2007) B-Side: “Squabs on the Forty Fab” First Charted: 10/10/1981 Peak: 24 CL, 12 CO, 4 UK, 8 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 1.76 video, 0.18 streaming About the Song: If one had to guess which of the three singles from East Side Story was biggest, “Is That Love?” (the first single) would get votes for sounding the most like a Squeeze song but it peaked at #35. “Tempted” would be an obvious choice since it has become the group’s most iconic song, but it stalled at #41. Instead, it was “the country lament of Labeled with Love” AM that gave the band the third top-10 hit of its career. “Squeeze was always able to write very strong ballads, and ‘Labelled with Love’ is one of those. Interestingly, it has a very Americana feel to it from a very English band.” RR While the band “doesn’t do many waltzes, but they nail the triplets” CR on “this bitter tale of drinking, heartbreak, decline and memory.” GR “Glenn Tilbrook’s longing vocals rarely sound better, and the drums are kept spare so that the accordion and jangly guitars are more present. It’s as good a song for sulking over past mistakes as it is for drinking with old friends, and the refrain is relatable by anyone still feeling those pangs of sadness over a long-ago heartbreak: ‘The past has been bottled and labeled with love.’” CR Diffuser.fm’s Bryan Wwzenek included the song in his list of country songs by alternative, indie, and punk artists, proclaiming it “to adorn both musical and lyrical hallmarks with themes pertaining to drinking and heartbreak and instrumentation of moseying beat and Nashville piano.” WK2

Someone Else’s Bell Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 38 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.16 streaming

Mumbo Jumbo Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 34 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.16 streaming

Vanity Fair Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: -- Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, -- streaming

Messed Around Squeeze

Writer(s): Chris Difford, Glenn Tilbrook Released: East Side Story (1981) Peak: 13 DF Click for codes to charts. Sales (in millions): -- Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, -- video, 0.17 streaming About the Song: Jools Holland was replaced with Paul Carrack on East Side Story but author Jim Drury speculated that Holland would have enjoyed playing on “Messed Around.” Chris Difford said “it actually sounds like Jools playing on it. It’s a breathtaking solo by Paul. Piano playing does not get any better than that. When we recorded this I felt as though I’d finally arrived, that I was in a proper band with real men.” WK Glenn agreed, saying the “song showed what a great band we had at the time, one of Squeeze’s strongest line-ups.” WK Regarding Holland, he said, “Yeah. There was definitely a feeling of ‘See what you’re missing out on, Jools. Look at all the fun you could be having.’ Paul did a great job on it and we recorded it virtually live in the studio.” WK Glenn has also said that the song was inspired by the Stray Cats. WK Record World said Tilbrook’s “ultra-cool rockabilly inflections are supported by the band’s tasteful piano sprinkles and guitar licks, creating an authentic late-‘50s sound.” WK Chris said, “Glenn’s guitar sounds very Scotty Moore, with a distant amplifier. It’s reminiscent of one of Glenn’s earlier solos from when we were younger and a great way to end an album.” WK

Resources/References: AM AllMusic.com review by Chris Woodstra JA John Alroy, Wilson & Alroy’s Record Reviews AZ Amazon.com review by Randy Silver RC Robert Christgau CR ClassicRockHistory.com (2024). “Top 10 Squeeze Songs” by Amy S CS CultureSonar.com (10/27/2023). “The 10 Best Squeeze Songs You May Have Never Heard” by Jim Beviglia GR GoldRadio.com (2024). “Squeeze’s 10 Greatest Songs, Ranked” by Mayer Nissim HE Half.Ebay.com PK Pop Kulcher/Marc Fagel Greatest Rock & Roll Albums of All Time RR ReturnOfRock.com (2021). “Squeeze Songs Ranked” SF Songfacts page for “Tempted” UD UDiscoverMusic.com (8/31/2025). “Best Squeeze Songs: 20 Tracks That Are Cool for Cats” by Tim Peacock WK Wikipedia page for “Tempted” WK1 Wikipedia page for “Is That Love?” WK2 Wikipedia page for “Labelled with Love” WK3 Wikipedia page for “Messed Around” Related DMDB Pages: First posted 3/6/2008; last updated 4/8/2026.