Smoke Gets In Your Eyes — The Platters
“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” was a UK and US Number One hit for The Platters back in 1959. However the song is much older than that, dating back to 1933.
Composed by Jerome Kern, with lyrics by Otto Harbach, “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” was originally written for the stage musical “Roberta”.
No, I’ve never heard of it either, even though I’m a big fan of musicals. But in its day, “Roberta” was a pretty big deal. Bob Hope starred in the Broadway show, as did George Murphy, Ray Middleton and Sydney Greenstreet. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers starred in the movie version.
“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” is probably the most enduring song from the stage version of “Roberta”, although another Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach song, “I Won’t Dance” was added to the movie version for Fred Astaire to sing, which I’ve linked to below.
It’s also interesting how the metaphor Otto Harbach used almost a century ago is much less applicable nowadays.
Back in the 1930s, plenty of people puffed away on cigarettes and pipes, coal powered factories up and down the land, steam trains belched out clouds of dark smoke as they passed along the track, boats turned the sky black with the soot from their engines as they plied the seven seas.
