“Bright Eyes” by Art Garfunkel

A troubling tale of rabbits hunted by endless predators. A journey to find a place called home. A seer named Fiver whose apocalyptic visions guide the way. The 1978 animated version of this classic tale — “Watership Down,” by Richard Adams — doesn’t shy away from suffering, pain and death, including the ecological destruction wrought by humans. Nor does its theme song, “Bright Eyes,” performed by Art Garfunkel. The song begins with a question:

Is it a kind of dream
Floating out on the tide
Following the river of death downstream?
Oh, is it a dream?

British composer Mike Batt said the film’s director, Martin Rosen, had approached him with the task of writing a song about death. “I remember coming home and thinking, ‘Wow, how do you write a song about death without it seeming ridiculously dark or totally stupid?’” Batt told BBC News. “It was then that I started to think, ‘Well it’s going to be a song about wondering and not knowing.’” That sense of wonderment forms the backdrop for “Bright Eyes,” which is essentially a series of questions culminating in the chorus:

Bright eyes
Burning like fire
Bright eyes
How can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale?
Bright eyes

Art Garfunkel’s “Bright Eyes” Have Vision

Credit: artgarfunkel.com

When folk singer Art Garfunkel heard the demo for “Bright Eyes,” he told BBC News, “it knocked me out.” While Garfunkel is best known for his classic partnership with Paul Simon, after the duo split Garfunkel embarked on a solo career, producing numerous hits of his own — including “Bright Eyes.” “I knew that I can create goose bumps with this mysterious enquiry into ‘what is this life and what is death for all of us?’” he said.

Indeed he does. Garfunkel himself is no stranger to loss — not only did he split from his collaborator, whom he’d met at age 11, in the 1970s, but he later lost a serious girlfriend to suicide and spent four years struggling to regain his voice after suffering from severe vocal issues.

Meanwhile, multiple accounts attest to the ability of “Bright Eyes” to bring grown men to tears. “This 80-year-old man who is a tough bugger cries every time he hears this song,” a user named Grant Nicholls recently wrote beneath this YouTube video.

You can listen to Art Garfunkel performing “Bright Eyes,” set to scenes from “Watership Down,” below.