Eric Carmen Only Recorded the Smash Hit “Hungry Eyes” Because He Had “Nothing Better To Do”
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Former Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen was in career limbo, and without a record label, when producer Jimmy Ienner called to ask if he could do a song for an upcoming 1987 film called Dirty Dancing.
The resulting track, “Hungry Eyes,” became a top-five hit and defining work for both the now-beloved movie and Carmen, who died in his sleep this past weekend at age 74. “It brought him great joy to know, that for decades, his music touched so many and will be his lasting legacy,” his wife, Amy Carmen, shared in a statement.
While “Hungry Eyes” is now certainly part of that legacy, you might be surprised to know that Carmen was initially lukewarm, at best, about the song.
Listen to “Hungry Eyes” on Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Spotify
Carmen was in a cold spell musically
Carmen, who was born in Cleveland in August 1949, first achieved musical notoriety as the vocalist for pop-rock band the Raspberries. The group released a handful of albums and had a couple notable songs during the early 1970s, including “Go All the Way” and “Let’s Pretend.” But by 1975, the Raspberries, hindered commercially by their squeaky-clean image, had broken up, and Carmen embarked on a solo career.
His first major hit was “All By Myself,” which rose all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in March 1976. The introspective song gave the singer, a rocker at heart, a new reputation as a romantic ballad artist.
Carmen struggled to find his niche and put out four albums over the next decade without achieving much singing success. He even took a multiyear break from performing in the early ’80s. Luckily, Ienner reached out to the singer about recording “Hungry Eyes.”
“People hadn’t exactly been banging down my door to get me to do stuff. I was ice cold,” Carmen told the Los Angeles Times. “Probably no one would ever see [the movie]. What good would it do? But I said: ‘What the hell, I’ve got nothing better to do.’”
He didn’t like the “Hungry Eyes” demo
Carmen’s first impression of the song was less than flattering. “It was a really bizarre-sounding demo, obviously done in somebody’s basement,” he once said. “But the song seemed to be there, so I said I’d do it.”
Carmen wanted to drastically alter the song, particularly its tempo that he thought was way too slow. There was only one problem: Filmmakers had already shot the dance sequence that would accompany the track onscreen, meaning such changes were impossible.
Still, he did what he could, adding some heavy guitar to the song to “juice it up.” The tune also benefitted from its placement in Dirty Dancing, an extended training montage featuring lead actors Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.
In the end, the track’s immense popularity shocked Carmen. “Hungry Eyes” climbed to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1988—marking his first top-five hit since “All By Myself” almost 12 years earlier. Off its success, he charted again later that year with “Make Me Lose Control,” and the record label Arista hurried to put out a greatest hits album for the singer.
“Soundtracks are made all the time that die horrible deaths—even soundtracks for popular movies. But it turned out to be a great opportunity for me,” he said.
Hungry Eyes wasn’t Carmen’s only movie hit
Carmen’s contributions to classic ’80s movies go beyond Dirty Dancing. Also a skilled songwriter, he co-wrote the 1984 duet “Almost Paradise” featuring Ann Wilson of Heart and Mike Reno of Canadian rock band Loverboy. Supported by Carmen’s music arrangement and Dean Pitchford’s lyrics, the song served as the love theme for the hit movie Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon, that same year.
The Footloose soundtrack was immensely popular and became one of only five albums to reach No. 1 that year as Prince and The Revolution’s Purple Rain soundtrack and Michael Jackson’s Thriller dominated the chart. It also nabbed Carmen his only Grammy nomination, for what is now Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Between his early rock success with the Raspberries and his two influential movie ballads, Carmen’s legacy music is bound to resonate with listeners for generations.
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