“Bette Davis Eyes” Singer Kim Carnes Wrote This Song for Kenny Rogers That Ended Up a No. 1 Hit for Reba McEntire and Vince Gill

By the late 1970s, Kenny Rogers commissioned Kim Carnes to write all the songs for his 1980 concept album Gideon. Along with her husband, David M. Ellingson, Carnes co-wrote all 12 tracks and also shared one duet with Rogers, “Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.”

Released a year before Carnes’ global success with her cover of the 1974 Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon-penned “Bette Davis Eyes,” her single with Rogers peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 3 on the Country chart, and earned them a Grammy nomination.

Carnes, who also played with Rogers in the New Christy Minstrels during the mid-’60s, had already released four albums and established herself as a songwriter since the 1960s, and wrote the 1974 song, “Song for a Rainy Day,” for David Cassidy and “Stay Away” for Barbra Streisand’s 1978 album Songbird.

Nearly a decade after their first duet, Rogers called on Carnes again to write a song he could sing with another female artist for his 1989 album Something Inside So Strong. Carnes teamed up with “Bette Davis Eyes” writer Weiss on “The Heart Won’t Lie,” a ballad of two lovers who can’t deny their feelings for one another.

Looking back over the years
Of all the things I’ve always meant to say
But the words didn’t come easily
So many times through empty fears
Of all the nights, I tried to pick up the phone
So scared of who might be answering

You try to live your life from day to day
But seeing you across the room tonight
Just gives me away

‘Cause the heart won’t lie
Sometimes life gets in the way
But there’s one thing that won’t change
I know, I’ve tried
The heart won’t lie
You can live your alibi
Who can see you’re lost inside
A foolish disguise?
The heart won’t lie

Videos by American Songwriter

[RELATED: Remembering When Kenny Rogers Crossed Over From Psychedelic Rocker—Later Uncovered in ‘The Big Lebowski’—to Country Legend]

Vince Gill’s Second Duet with Reba

Rogers album already featured Gladys Knight on a duet of “If I Knew Then What I Know Now,” and other tracks featuring Anne Murray, Holly Dunn, and Ronald Isley. He was also set to sing “The Heart Won’t Lie” with Reba McEntire, but their preliminary recording session ultimately fell flat when their vocal ranges didn’t blend.

“‘The Heart Won’t Lie’ was a song we were trying to get a duet on with Kenny Rogers, and the keys just would not work,” revealed McEntire during a 2021 interview on I Miss … ’90s on Apple.

When McEntire was working on her 1992 album, It’s Your Call, she asked Rogers if she could record the song herself before realizing the song needed a partner. Several years earlier, McEntire had a Top 20 Country hit with Vince Gill, “Oklahoma Swing,” from his 1989 album When I Call Your Name, and called on him again for “The Heart Won’t Lie.”

Released as the fourth single off It’s Your Call, “The Heart Won’t Lie” went to No. 1 on the Country chart. It marked the first duet by a country duo to top the chart since Dolly Parton and Ricky Van Shelton’s 1991 hit “Rockin’ Years,” and picked up a CMA nomination for Vocal Event of the Year in 1993.

Gill and McEntire also performed “The Heart Won’t Lie” on the 1992 Academy of Country Music Awards, then sang it again on an episode of Evening Shade (“Ava Takes A Shower”), the TV sitcom starring Burt Reynolds and Marilu Henner.

A music video for The Heart Won’t Lie,” directed by Jon Small, was also set as a mini-movie, loosely based on the 1982 drama An Officer And A Gentleman, featuring McEntire as a U.S. Navy officer who falls for her sergeant.

McEntire’s Regret

When Gill came into the project, McEntire never shared it with Rogers, which she regretted. Eventually, Rogers approached McEntire about recording the song with Gill and not him.

“I didn’t tell Kenny, which was my mistake, totally,” said McEntire. “Kenny approached me at the CMA Awards. He said, ‘Why did you do that?’ I said, ‘Kenny, I am so sorry. We were just going so fast. It’s a great, wonderful song. I never even considered coming back and talking to you about that, and that’s one of the things I totally regret.’”

McEntire continued, “I hugged his neck, and I told him I was terribly sorry. But I did not do that maliciously.”

Despite their missed duet and McEntire’s regret, she and Rogers remained friends until his death in 2020. They continued to perform together throughout the years, including a duet of his 1980 song—which Rogers originally sang with Carnes—”Don’t Fall in Love with a Dreamer.”

In 2001, McEntire also released her cover of Rogers’ 1977 song “Sweet Music Man” on her compilation Greatest Hits Volume III: I’m a Survivor.

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