Smoke Gets in Your Eyes is a classic American show tune written by Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach for the 1933 musical Roberta. The song explores heartbreak and the irony of romance, a sentiment captured in the line When your heart's on fire, smoke gets in your eyes, which is said to come from a Russian proverb. On stage it was sung by Tamara Drasin, and the first recording was made in 1933 by Gertrude Niesen with Ray Sinatra and his Orchestra, released by RCA Victor with the B-side Jealousy. The tune has roots in Show Boat and was tried in 1932 as a radio march theme before becoming part of Roberta; it later appeared in the 1952 remake Lovely to Look At. The Platters scored a major hit with a 1958 doo-wop version from the album Remember When? that topped the US and UK charts, and in 2019 that recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame; the song has since been covered by many artists including Nat King Cole, Eartha Kitt, Dinah Washington, Bryan Ferry, and JD Souther.
