Dark Eyes Lyrics
Oh, the gentlemen are talking
And the midnight moon is on the riverside
They’re drinking up and walking
And it is time for me to slide
I live in another world
Where life and death are memorized
Where the earth is strung with lovers' pearls
And all I see are dark eyes
[Verse 2]
A cock is crowing far away
And another soldier’s deep in prayer
Some mother’s child has gone astray
She can’t find him anywhere
But I can hear another drum
Beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature’s beast fears as they come
And all I see are dark eyes
[Verse 3]
They tell me to be discreet
For all intended purposes
They tell me revenge is sweet
And from where they stand, I’m sure it is
But I feel nothing for their game
Where beauty goes unrecognized
All I feel is heat and flame
And all I see are dark eyes
Oh, the French girl, she’s in paradise
And a drunken man is at the wheel
Hunger pays a heavy price
To the falling gods of speed and steel
Oh, time is short and the days are sweet
And passion rules the arrow that flies
A million faces at my feet
But all I see are dark eyes
About
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[Arthur] Baker had helped me produce the album Empire Burlesque a few years earlier in New York City. All the songs were mixed and finalized except Baker kept suggesting that we should have an acoustic song at the end of the record … I was staying at the Plaza Hotel on 59th Street and had come back after midnight, went through the lobby and headed upstairs. As I stepped out of the elevator, a call girl was coming towards me in the hallway – pale yellow hair wearing a fox coat – high-heeled shoes that could pierce your heart. She had blue circles around her eyes, black eyeliner, dark eyes … She had a beautifulness, but not for this kind of world. Poor wretch, doomed to walk this hallway for a thousand years.
Later that night I sat at a window overlooking Central Park and wrote the song “Dark Eyes.” I recorded it the next night with only an acoustic guitar and it was the right thing to do. It did complete the album.
Bob Dylan, in his autobiography Chronicles: Volume One
- 10.Dark Eyes
