What is "Private Eyes" by Hall and Oates Actually About?
In my estimation, “Private Eyes” by Hall and Oates is the greatest pop song of all-time—it’s fun, it’s catchy, and you can overhead clap to it. Plus it’s got staying power. it sticks in your head but not like a “Macarena” or say an “ Mmm Bop,” where it worms its way in until you just want to scratch it out.
But have you ever thought about what “Private Eyes” is really about? If not, you might be better off. “Private Eyes” is three-and-a-half minutes of pop music bliss. And that's probably all it should be.
But if you’re the type that HAS TO KNOW like, I don’t know, say an obsessive private eye, then let's crack this case wide open.
Just don't say I didn't warn you.
First clue: Song creator Warren Pash’s original title was “I Need You to Need Me”. Which sounds a lot like Cheap Trick's “I Want You to Want Me”, only whinier. One day Pash saw a billboard for the movie “The Private Eyes” starring Don Knotts and Tim Conway. And he just knew.
It seems possible a billboard influenced the song title of Hall and Oates first album “Whole Oates”. I mean, check out the album cover.
It also seems possible the duo just wanted to call the album “Hall and Oates” but they had to tell their record company over a pay-phone on a busy street.
They waited until album # 4 to go eponymous with Daryl Hall and John Oates . Check that album cover here. (I guess now we know where Bowie got all that Ziggy Stardust shit from…)
Another possible clue about “Private Eyes”—in addition to Pash, the credited songwriters were Hall (but not Oates), and sisters Janna and Sara Allen. Sara Allen was Hall’s long-time girlfriend. And Hall says he and Sara wrote the lyrics.
Again, from the Song Facts article, Hall says about song-writing in general, “Some people go to a psychiatrist. We write songs.” Hmm.
Consider some of the lyrics:
“I see you. You see me. Watch you blowing the lines when you’re making a scene.”
“You play with words. You play with love. You can twist it around baby. That ain’t enough.”
“If you’re letting me in. Or letting me go. Don’t lie when you’re hurting inside ‘cause you can’t escape my…Private Eyes”.
“They see your every move”
”I’m a spy, but on your side.”
Symbolically the song is about trying to determine if a love interest is acting in an ethical fashion. The narrator’s literal eyes are also their…private eyes.
Taken literally, it’s about having someone’s ass followed, supposedly for their own good. But isn’t that just what a stalker would say?
Total buzzkill. We have to come up with a better origin story than “Dude saw a billboard for a dumb movie and wrote a stalker song.”
So here’s what you tell people at parties: Hall and Oates themselves were at a party. At the Playboy Mansion. John Ritter makes the introduction: “Hall and Oates, meet Conway and Knotts.” And the dye is cast.
Hall and Oates tell them their girlfriends will soon be attending Loni Anderson’s bachelorette party at the Playgirl Mansion. And they have some concerns.
Turns out Conway and Knotts are serious about comedy. They want to go full method. It’s how they find the jokes. And they offer to go undercover and infiltrate that wild Playgirl Mansion party and spy on Hall and Oates's ladies free of charge. Hall and Oates laugh it off and say “Sure, why not?”
Hall and Oates realize Conway and Knotts are serious and try to call it off, but are too late, so they go to the mansion for damage control .
Tell ‘em the greatest pop song of all-time is about that fateful night. Tell them Hall and Oates started writing it on the spot after getting trapped in a broom closet. Tell them they got thrown in jail later that night and refused to leave when Billy Dee Williams came to bail them out, because the song wasn't …quite…done.
If they believe any of it, find out if they are a person of means. And if there are any pin numbers you can help them remember. I mean come on. How ridiculous can you get? Does Private Eyes sound even slightly like an Oates song to you?