Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

If YouTube asks you to sign in to prove you're not a bot, use the player below instead:

Links | About This Song | Lyrics | Additional Notes

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

LINKS

MP3 Download

ABOUT THIS SONG

release date of original song: 1958
release date of this version: November 9, 2026
length: 2 min 37 secs
music: Jerome Kern
lyrics: Otto Harbach
vocals: Chris Tong
karaoke arrangement: CheckMic 123 Karaoke

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes is a beautiful, dramatic show tune written by composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical comedy, Roberta. It became famous when it was recorded by The Platters in 1958.

LYRICS

SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Oh
I of course replied
Something here inside
cannot be denied

They said "someday you'll find
all who love are blind"
Oh
When your heart's on fire,
You must realize,
smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt my love
Yet today my love has flown away,
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
Oh
So I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies,
smoke gets in your eyes
Smoke gets in your eyes

ADDITIONAL NOTES

Key change. I lowered the key of the song a couple of notes to better suit my voice.

The meaning of the song. A lot of people know this song, and think of it as a nostalgic, dramatic love song, without ever having really listened to the words or made sense of them.

But in fact, this is a song that is all about self-delusion: imagining (wrongly) that your "true love" loves you the way you love her, only to finally be shocked when she leaves you ("my love has flown away"). It is very similar to songs like "What A Fool Believes".

For this reason, I've chosen a cover design that suggests the entire relationship is "smoke" — completely imagined by just one person, and proven illusory over the course of the song.

top