Eagles – Lyin’ Eyes

About The Song

Don Henley and Glenn Frey got the title and idea for the song while they were hanging out one night at their favorite Los Angeles restaurant/bar Dan Tana’s. They were still struggling musicians at the time and they thought about all those beautiful women who were cheating on their husbands. And so while at the watering hole, they saw a stunning young lady with a fat and much older wealthy man. They laughed and Frey said, “Look at her, she can’t even hide those lyin eyes!”

And that was the light bulb moment for them. They suddenly scrambled for napkins to write down the lyrics. Henley claimed that Frey wrote most of the song but that he contributed the verses and the music.

Frey revealed that “…the story had always been there. I don’t want to say it wrote itself, but once we started working on it, there were no sticking points. Lyrics just kept coming out, and that’s not always the way songs get written.”

According to Henley in the History of the Eagles documentary, “It was about all these girls that would come down to Dan Tana’s looking beautiful. They’d be there from 8 O’clock until midnight having drinks with all of us rockers, then they’d go home because they were kept women.”

“Lyin’ Eyes” peaked at #2 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and it earned the band a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Group.

Video

Lyric

Let’s sing along with the lyrics!

 City girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile
A rich old man and she won’t have to worry
She’ll dress up all in lace and go in style

Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice

So she tells him she must go out for the evening
To comfort an old friend who’s feelin’ down
But he knows where she’s goin’ as she’s leavin’
She is headed for the cheatin’ side of town

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lying eyes

On the other side of town a boy is waiting
With fiery eyes and dreams no one could steal
She drives on through the night anticipating
‘Cause he makes her feel the way she used to feel

She rushes to his arms, they fall together
She whispers that it’s only for awhile
She swears that soon she’ll be comin’ back forever
She pulls away and leaves him with a smile

You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes

She gets up and pours herself a strong one
And stares out at the stars up in the sky
Another night, it’s gonna be a long one
She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry

She wonders how it ever got this crazy
She thinks about a boy she knew in school
Did she get tired or did she just get lazy?
She’s so far gone she feels just like a fool

My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things
You set it up so well, so carefully
Ain’t it funny how your new life didn’t change things
You’re still the same old girl you used to be

You can’t hide your lying eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes
Honey, you can’t hide your lyin’ eyes