Musical Monday - Private Eyes by Hall and Oates

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: November 7, 1981 through November 14, 1981.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: 11/21/81 through 01/09/82.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

Memory is a strange thing. I have a distinct memory from when my family went on safari in Tanzania. We were at a hotel in the Great Rift Valley and the hotel band was practicing in the late afternoon as my brother and I swam in the hotel pool. The singer was badly off key, and they kept singing the same snippet of song over and over again. In my memory, the song the band was singing was Private Eyes, but that can't possibly be true. My family was in Tanzania in the late 1970s, and Private Eyes wasn't released until 1981. I have no idea what song the hotel band was actually playing quite badly on that midsummer afternoon, but it wasn't this one.

Private Eyes is in kind of an odd position. In the last half of 1981, the charts in the U.S. were dominated by a handful of songs that stayed atop the charts for extended periods of time. The exception is this song, sandwiched between Arthur's Theme on the one hand, and Physical on the other. Cross' song spent a month at the top of the charts, and Olivia Newton-John's tune was the most successful single of the entire decade. In between them was this song, which stayed atop the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and the Cash Box Top 100 for just one. In my estimation, this song is better (and probably has had more staying power) than the songs that topped the charts just before and after it.

Previous Musical Monday: Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross

Subsequent Musical Monday: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by the Police

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Physical by Olivia Newton-John

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Physical by Olivia Newton-John

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

Hall and Oates     1980s Project     Musical Monday     Home