Hungry Eyes

"Hungry Eyes" is a song performed by American musician Eric Carmen, a former member of the band Raspberries, and was featured in the film Dirty Dancing (1987). The song was recorded at Beachwood Studios in Beachwood, Ohio in 1987. "Hungry Eyes" peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 3 on the Cash Box Top 100 in 1988. The power ballad was not released commercially in the UK, but it managed to peak at No. 82 in January 1988, having charted purely on import sales.

Songwriters Franke Previte and John DeNicola wrote the song, as well as another hit from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, "(I've Had) The Time of My Life".

Background
Eric Carmen, the performer of "Hungry Eyes", had been the vocalist of the Raspberries. In 1975, he released his first solo album Eric Carmen in 1975, spawning the worldwide hit "All by Myself", but subsequently faced declining chart fortunes.

"Hungry Eyes" was written in 1984 by John DeNicola and Franke Previte, and originally recorded by Previte's band, Franke and the Knockouts for their album Makin' the Point, but did not appear on the album until its reissue in 1998. Jimmy Ienner, Raspberries' producer, asked Carmen to sing this song for the Dirty Dancing album because he was familiar with Carmen's musical style. Carmen was initially hesitant to produce a song for another film soundtrack because he believed that soundtrack music died "horrible deaths".

The song, only his second Top 40 song of the 1980s, represented his biggest hit since "All by Myself". A few months after the success of "Hungry Eyes", Carmen released the Ienner-produced "Make Me Lose Control", which also hit Top 10 in the US.

Music video
The music video featured Carmen with Sally Steele in a short scene in a café at the end. Steele later founded Vegas Rocks! Magazine, though she is not the main actress in the video, whose identity is unknown.

Releases
The song was released commercially on 7" vinyl in many countries; plus, a 3-track 12" maxi single and 2-track cassette were produced. CD singles were a relatively new format; however, a 2-track Japanese mini CD single was commercially released in 1988.

Eyeopener version
British dance music group Eyeopener covered "Hungry Eyes" and released it as a single on 8 November 2004. Their version reached number 16 in the UK and number 25 in Ireland.

Track Listing

CD Single

1. Hungry Eyes (Radio Edit) 2. Hungry Eyes (Extended Mix) 3. Hungry Eyes (Cheeky Trax Remix) 4. Hungry Eyes (KB Project Remix)

12” Single and 12” Promo

1. Hungry Eyes (Extended Mix) 2. Hungry Eyes (Cheeky Trax Remix)

Digital Download

1. Hungry Eyes (Radio Edit) 2. Hungry Eyes (Extended Mix) 3. Hungry Eyes (Cheeky Trax Remix) 4. Hungry Eyes (KB Project Remix) 5. Hungry Eyes (Clubstar Remix)

Other versions
New Found Glory released their version on their 2007 album of film covers, From the Screen to Your Stereo Part II.

A reworked version with altered lyrics by James Radford appeared in a 2017 commercial for Sheba cat food in the UK.

John Denicola, co-writer of the song, released his own version in 2019 on his debut album The Why Because on Omad Records. It reached number 22 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart.

Tobacco covered the song in 2020.