Hank Penny: "Bloodshot Eyes" (1950) Wynonie Harris (1951)

We love this song. Written by Hank Penny, it is the granddaddy to the like themed "You Done Tore Your Playhouse Down Again" by King Biscuit Boy, posted here in August of 2012.

Hank Penny had a Texas/country swing pedigree and wrote three hits before leading a band in Las Vegas. He was part of Spade Cooley's band that was hugely popular before Spade was arrested for murdering his wife for seeing Roy Rogers on the side. But we digress...

As fun as Hank's version was, Wynonie Harris took it to a different level. His gruff and more citified version was a big hit and was perhaps one of the first songs to bridge racism due to the songs popularity in the U.S. and Caribbean.

So I guess our little romance has finally simmered down

You should join the circus, you make a real good clown
Your eyes look like a road map, I'm scared to smell your breath
You better shut your peepers before you bleed to death

Don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me
I can tell you've been out on a spree
Well it's plain that you're lyin'
When you say that you've been cryin'
Don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me
Don't roll those bloodshot eyes at me

Wynonie Harris would have a string of single hits from 1946 to 1952. After that he fell on tough times before recording some sides for Chess records in the early 60's. He would play the Apollo Theater in 1967 with Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Witherspoon, and T-Bone Walker.

He died in 1969.

Hank Penny's song and what Wynonie Harris did with it led to an incalculable number of covers of "Bloodshot Eyes" over the years. 

We are including Penny's original version followed by the Wynonie Harris version (note the differences in presentation). Followed by two staff picks. A '70's version by Asleep at the Wheel which is true to the original and a big band version by Pat Benatar off of her thoroughly underrated album True Love.