Her hair is Harlow gold
Her lips a sweet surprise
Her hands are never cold
She's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll turn her music on you
You won't have to think twice
She's pure as New York snow
She got Bette Davis eyes

And she'll tease you, she'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious, and she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush
She got Greta Garbo's standoff sighs, she's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll let you take her home
It whets her appetite
She'll lay you on a throne
She got Bette Davis eyes
She'll take a tumble on you
Roll you like you were dice
Until you come out blue
She's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll expose you, when she snows you
Offer feed with the crumbs she throws you
She's ferocious and she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy, she's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll tease you, she'll unease you
All the better just to please you
She's precocious, and she knows just what it
Takes to make a pro blush
All the boys think she's a spy, she's got Bette Davis eyes

She'll tease you
She'll unease you
Just to please you
She's got Bette Davis eyes
She'll expose you
When she snows you
'Cause she knows you, she's got Bette Davis Eyes
She'll tease you


Lyrics submitted by numb, edited by LeMarkyDussod

Bette Davis Eyes Lyrics as written by Jackie De Shannon Donna Weiss

Lyrics © KAREN SCHAUBEN PUBLISHING ADMINISTRATION

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Bette Davis Eyes song meanings
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    General Comment

    A striking thing here upon which nobody has commented is that the song, a hit in 1981, refers to movie stars who were born around 1908… they were all at least seventy years old when the song was a hit and in their sixties when it was written. "A spy" is another unlikely comparison in 1981… more of a movie trope from earlier decades. To remember these stars in their prime, a listener would had to have been at least 50. But it was very popular, and it enhanced the mystique of the woman it was describing, that she couldn't be compared to anyone more contemporary. And the woman who is being described is not old… she's precocious.

    This was a landmark song in describing a woman who uses her sexuality for her own power, without shaming her or reducing her to an object of pleasure like the promiscuous women in the lyrics of Seventies/Eighties hard rock sung by men. "Pure as New York snow" though she may be, she's the one driving the action in every line, and the men who are involved are the objects to her. Musically, this was at the junction of rock and lounge music, but in glamorizing a woman who was classically attractive and in control, it helped prime culture for the arrival, a couple of years later, of Madonna.

    rikdad101@yahoo.comon July 23, 2017   Link

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