Payola$ - Eyes Of A Stranger

When I was a little kid there was a fantastic TV show on one of the TV channels, entitled "Tropical Heat" aka "Sweating Bullets". It was a story of Nick Slaughter, a former policeman and now private investigator, who - along with his friends, Sylvie, Ian, Spider, Carillo and others solved the most puzzling criminal mysteries - all in a wonderful scenery of a fictious tropical town called Key Mariah.

The series had several trademarks. Among of them were Nick's ponytail, his jeep, passion for women, Sylvie's red hair and wit, Spider's charming foolishness and many other things - including a fantastic intro song "Anyway The Wind Blows" by Fred and Larry Molin.

Around 8 months ago I stumbled upon this song on youtube, here it is:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7MyCWj-If2Y

Reading the comments of guys saying "My childhood flashes before my eyes", I felt in a moment how many years have gone by and shall never return... I wanted to see what other people write about the song and series, and therefore started reading the comments. One of them was written by a person from Canada. I clicked on his profile and saw that among his favourites there was an enigmatic song "Eyes Of A Stranger" by Payola$. I had never heard it before, but the mysterious face of man with a lot of make-up on his face that featured the video made me curious... I went on to watch the video and listen to the song.

It was one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have heard.

Then came the standard process of "googling", and soon I knew a lot about the band. They were a sort of another "one hit wonder", who lighted up like a candle and faded so fast that almost no one noticed... it didn't discourage me though. I got several mp3s of the band ("The Best Of The Payolas") and to be honest I didn't like them too much - they were nowhere near as good as "Eyes..."

As far as I remember, the video that the Canadian posted was watched around 200.000 times and had lots of comments, often including very wise remarks of people all over the world. Unfortunately, this amazing song was removed from youtube some time ago, along with hundreds of other great tunes. It makes me wonder - for whom is the music created? Who found anything bad in the fact that people came to this website every day, finding some joy in those beautiful songs and enlightning their sad, bleak lives?

Anyway, I wanted to do something to change the matter. With the help of my good friend (and by the way - one of the most intelligent and promising youngsters of the world - and I'm not exaggerating) Sz.G. I made this video. It doesn't show the actual teledisc, as it would probably be treated as exceeding copyright laws and therefore deleted within a few days. It just shows the photo of the wonderful group of people, who became famous in the 80's with their great hit, "Eyes Of A Stranger". The rest, as they say, was history...

Here's the lyrics to the song:

Can I touch you to see if you're real?
Is it nothing this something I feel?
Can my heart take the strain?
Or will it break down again?

In your lips I sense a danger
You've got the eyes of a stranger

Have I been sleeping for all these years?
Is it magic that makes you appear?
When you walked in the room I felt my heart race
But you acted rude and I looked in your face

In your lips I sense a danger
You've got the eyes of a stranger
In your lips I see a danger
You've got the eyes of a stranger

In your lips I sense a danger
You've got the eyes of a stranger
In your lips I see a danger
You've got the eyes of a stranger...

=============================

I've got two small requests my friends. If you found the text above helpful in any way, could you please:

1) try to help me with the "???" in the lyrics? I'm not able to figure out what was sung there... I'm not a native English speaker, but I'm sure that some of you are and would be able to hear those few words. I'd be very grateful.

EDIT 6th May 2007: thanks for submitting the correct lyrics Liskacz! Now everything is OK.

2) If you enjoyed this song, try this one... the band is from Britain, and that's the only major difference - they also released one big hit and later faded from the music scene, they were the members of the New Wave... Their biggest song is beautiful, touching and the type of the ones that you'll never forget. After hearing about the flowers screaming their joy in summer light you'll too find that no matter how sad and bad is everything around us - there's still beauty, charm and happiness that is within the reach of our hands... it's just our task to find it and never let it go.

Follow this link, you won't regret it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=52wuwbJGC_c

• Category

  Music

[Memoryburst]

The best music was made in the 80's!!

[316619nick]

Wow im 18 and i just heard this for the first time at work on the radio :O, I appreciate music alot more now

[MrNeomatrix99]

great story, and great song

[danger mouse]

The man knows he's shit ! S4 ep 14 if not mistaking ! Epic sounds

[Leslie Cantor]

Brings back memories when I was in high school. Great song!

[freezknotable]

Valley Girl

[xxzeon]

"ENIGMATIC" as quoted from AMG! I agree! I was lucky enough to have seen this band perform live in the early-mid eighties on more than one occasion ......both in TORONTO Ont, and in BUFFALO Ny!!!!

[joe burnett]

miami vice

[Thomas R. Skidmore]

I almost forgot this song from a deep part of my childhood. Thanks for uploading it for us all.

[superioreighties]

heavily influenced by The Police ;)

[ArmsDealer06]

The New Engine Food