"Them There Eyes" is a jazz standard composed by Maceo Pinkard and Doris Tauber with lyrics by William Tracey, published in 1930. The song was introduced by the Gus Arnheim Orchestra in the 1931 film Let's Do Things, with an early charting recording by Bing Crosby alongside the Rhythm Boys as part of Arnheim's Cocoanut Grove Orchestra in late 1930. The composition is a jaunty, upbeat tune with a playful melody that cleverly evades predictability through devices such as an octave drop in the fifteenth measure and unexpected chromatic inflections. Written in the key of C, its 32-bar ABAC form features harmonic tension from B-minor chords and includes a two-bar break that gives the piece a lively, swinging character well suited to jazz interpretation and vocal improvisation. Pinkard, a prolific Harlem Renaissance-era songwriter also known for "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Sugar," co-created what would become his biggest collaborative hit. The song gained particular fame through Billie Holiday's 1939 Vocalion recording, which reshaped the melody into a vocal classic and influenced generations of singers. Louis Armstrong's 1931 version established an early instrumental benchmark. The tune has remained a favorite among both vocalists and instrumentalists for decades, with notable recordings by Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young, Anita O'Day, Oscar Peterson, and many others, valued for its melodic ingenuity and rhythmic vitality.
