“I Only Have Eyes For You” is a song by composer Harry Warren and lyricist Al Dubin. The song was written for the 1934 film ‘Dames’, in which it was performed by Dick Powell. In addition to the original version by Dick Powell, recordings of the song by Ben Selvin (vocal by Howard Phillips), Eddy Duchin (vocal by Lew Sherwood), and Jane Froman became hits in 1934.
The Flamingos recorded a doo-wop adaptation of “I Only Have Eyes for You” at Bell Sound Studios in New York City in 1959. Their version was commercially successful, peaking at number 11 on the US Billboard chart and number 3 on the Billboard Hot R&B chart. “I Only Have Eyes for You” was selected by producer George Goldner among a group of 33 standards that the Flamingos might record for the album Flamingo Serenade. The Flamingos recorded a dozen songs from Goldner’s list, but “I Only Have Eyes for You” proved difficult. The solution came to Johnson while he was sleeping, and he quickly called the group to his room at around 4 am to have them rehearse the new version, complete with doo-wop backing vocals and harmonies. In the studio, Johnson directed the session musicians to play piano, guitar and gentle brush-driven drums in a stretched-out triplet rhythm, emphasising the third of the chord in the guitar and the fifth in the piano. This created a floating counter-melody to the vocal harmonies. Heavy reverberation was added to the vocals at the mastering stage, under the direction of Goldner.
Goldner initially thought the song was not commercial enough to be a single, and so he sequenced it first on side tw of the album Flamingo Serenade. Radio DJs started playing the song, however, and it was released as a single in early May 1959. It first entered the Billboard pop chart on May 30 at number sixty, peaking at number eleven in July. The Billboard Year End chart ranked it as the 73rd biggest hit of 1959. Rolling Stone magazine placed the Flamingos’ version of “I Only Have Eyes for You” at number 158 on their 2011 list of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”. In 2003, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2009, Johnson said the song was making even more money for him at the time than when the Flamingos were together.
A 1964 recording by Cliff Richard and the Norrie Paramor Orchestra peaked at number 31 on the Australian chart. A 1966 recording by the Lettermen went to number 4 on the US Easy Listening chart and number 72 on Hot 100. In 1972, Jerry Butler’s version on Mercury records spent eight weeks on the Billboard R&B chart, reaching a positional high of number 20. It also charted in the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number 85.
A recording of the song by Art Garfunkel was a number-one hit on the UK Singles Chart in October 1975 for two weeks, In the US, the song reached number 18 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. In Canada, the song also reached number one on the RPM middle-of-the-road chart and number eight on the top singles chart. Garfunkel performed “I Only Have Eyes for You” on the second episode of Saturday Night Live.
