This song has always sort of destroyed me, which is no small feat for a song this well known and often played. I always thought I was alone in this and that the song meant something different to me than anyone else, but I found an article wherein the author describes exactly the same, and put into words what I've always struggled to. I'm glad I wasn't left to this task of verbally pinning down the appeal of this song to me, though as an influence, and as such a perfect representative of something nearly impossible to speak about, I'm sure pieces of it will continue to show up in my writing forever. However, I must add that when one has been in love, the kind of love I prefer anyway, it does tunnel way deeper than the "no love or lust present" version that the author experiences. To me, it's full of it, pushing it beyond mere disturbing saccharine. This song is pure devotion.
"History tells me the doo-wop hit "I Only Have Eyes for You" by the Flamingos was released in 1959, but I don't believe it. Not that I could tell you when it's from, exactly. It's a very slippery song and its place in the chronology could be shifted either way. I remember hearing it on the radio in the 1970s, and I probably assumed it was current, another nugget of AM gold. Something like a Carpenters single, maybe, a sha-la-la-la, a whoa-oh-oh-oh that still shines. But at the same time, it also sounds like it comes from much earlier. From before it was recorded, even. It's the kind of song that seems like it was always there. It was written in the 30s, so maybe that's part of it. It just seems like what I imagine music from 1959 to be. Does it really sound like two years after "Jailhouse Rock"? And then there's the issue of the Flamingos themselves. In the day, I figured at least one woman was in that clutch of voices. They were all black, too, another surprise that came many years later.
So yeah, I can't get a handle on this song. Forgive my confusion; I knew this would be tough. I love this song deeply, but I find it difficult to talk about. I'm thinking it's because so much of my initial listening and processing happened when my vocabulary was limited to a few hundred words. You don't analyze songs in kindergarten; they just sort of seep into you, and the feelings they impart don't have names. Somehow, with this song in particular, I got stuck back there. "I Only Have Eyes For You" did strange things to me then that continue to linger. I can count four or five different feelings going on at once, and it's hard to integrate them satisfactorily.
The song creeps me out, obviously, but I assume it does that for everybody. It's the David Lynch thing, I suppose; not that he invented disquieting nostalgia, he just perfected it. I can picture something awful happening while this song plays; there's menace there, which might explain why it makes me feel a little sick. Yes, this song, which I love, also makes me queasy. I'm talking about a faint but very real physical response. When I hear "I Only Have Eyes For You", I want to reach for the mouthwash. It's partly the creepiness, the bad things I can imagine happening, but also the naked sentimentality. The chorus is just so over the top, so saccharine. So we have a song that is beautiful, disorienting, creepy, sentimental, and nauseating: pretty much exactly what I imagine dying to be like. That works: This song is death. Whenever it comes on the radio or plays in an advertisement, "I Only Have Eyes For You" swallows me completely.
One thing "I Only Have Eyes For You" doesn't do, not even a little, is make me think of a woman. I hear nothing like love or even lust inside here. Could be because I heard it so early, but there's some other dissociative stuff happening: To be honest, I can barely even hear the lyrics. Whatever part of my brain processes musical texture, it completely shouts down the one trying to process the words. It's all about the sound, this single; every bit of its impact comes from the production. The reverb on the vocals, however the genius engineer made it happen in 1959, is for me the sum of this record's content. The echo on the "shoo-bop shoo-bop" is beautiful beyond anything I could ever hope to express in writing. And that's the crux of what I'm getting at here: Crazy as it seems, everything I mentioned up above, and thousands of words more, it's all held inside this one sonic effect.
I stop to think about "I Only Have Eyes For You", if only for a moment, nearly every time I hear it. I poke at it to see if I can figure out why it means so much, how what most would consider a charming one-off plucked from a Time-Life Crusin' Through the 50s comp can be so devastating. And for the past few years, I've wanted to write about it. But I kept putting it off. Somehow, words-- at least ones I could come with-- seemed too crude for this thing I was trying to get at. I was pretty sure I could never make anyone else understand what the hell I was talking about. My failure brought to mind a couple lines from Mercury Rev's "Holes": "That big blue open sea/ That can't be crossed/ That can't be climbed." In relation to this song, that's where I've sat, for years, looking out at the horizon. So I resigned myself. It would just be me and "I Only Have Eyes for You" and that's it. A little secret I would share with myself[...]." - Mark Richardson
