Eyes Without A Face is one of Billy Idol’s best-known songs, possibly inspired by the 1959 film of the same name. From SongFacts
Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) is the title to a chillingly horrific yet classically poetic 1959 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” genré 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. (thanks, Pablo - Miami, FL)
I personally love the song for it’s driving bass line, the very cool bridge, and Billy Idol’s voice (a very, very underrated singer in my opinion). It’s very easy to listen to, and no surprise whatsoever that it was a huge hit.
And of course, the lyrics:
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 your 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 your eyes without a face.
I spend so much time
Believing all the lies
To keep the dream alive
Now it makes me sad
It makes me mad at truth
For lovin’ 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 your eyes without a 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 oh,
the gigolo pool.
Hangin’ out by the state line,
Turnin Holy water into wine,
Drinkin it down oh,
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.
Now I close my eyes
And I wonder why
I don’t despise
Now all I can do
Is love what was once
So alive and new
But it’s gone from your eyes
I’d better realise
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 your eyes without a face.
Such a human waste your eyes without a face
And now it’s getting worse.
