Enough with the Promises Already
“Promise, Promises” by Naked Eyes from the album Burning Bridges
First week in August, 1983
Naked Eyes had a major Top 40 hit with “Promises, Promises”, so you’ve likely heard it if you’ve been near a Big Awesome 80s radio station, Still Lovin’ Those 80s CD box set, Here’s Your Goddamn 80s XM Channel, or any thirtysomething’s stuck-in-the-past iPod recently.
If you’ve actually listened to the lyric, you know it’s a song about a man who’s too prone to believing, and/or his girlfriend who’s too prone to lying. It’s kind of a he-said, she-said situation.
If you’re not familiar with the song, all you really need to know is encapsulated in these four lines:
You made me promises, promises
Knowing I’d believe
Promises, promises
You knew you’d never keep
And it sounds quite nice. That’s about all there is to it.
I did run across an acoustic recording by the original artists, produced for an “80’s Hits Stripped” compilation CD, which drops the slick echo-chamber production and hip synthesixylophones and adds a healthy dollop of vocal sincerity. This version sounds quite nice also.
But in the end, he’s still a gullible dweeb who buys anything she says, she’s a deceptive siren who makes pledges in bad faith, and that’s the compleat ass and teakettle.
But it all sounds quite nice.
Best Part:
Naked Eyes: “You made me”
Listener: “Kill? Steal? Climax? A sandwich?”
Naked Eyes: “Promises, promises”
Listener: “Ohhhh, ya got me!”
Naked Eyes: “Psych!”
