If I Had Eyes
original song written, composed, and performed by Jack Johnson
"If I Had Eyes" is the first single from American singer-songwriter Jack Johnson's fourth studio album, Sleep Through the Static. It was released exclusively on Brushfirerecords.com November 29. The official iTunes single was released on December 11, 2007.
The track features more electric guitar work, similar to that on his On and On album. The track is a mix of acoustic, jazz, and blues. Lyrically, the song expresses the sad breakup of a long-term relationship.
Background and writing
Johnson elaborated to the Herald Sun about how his then 3-year-old son Moe inspired "If I Had Eyes": "He was drinking a lot of soya milk at the time. I told him if he kept drinking too much, he would grow a tail with an eyeball at the end. He looked at me trying to make sure I was kidding. When he figured that out, he attached his elbow to his butt and pointed his finger around the room.
“If I Had Eyes” enters the record as original song written, composed, and performed by Jack Johnson. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eyes, original and song can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“If I Had Eyes” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Eyes, original and song provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2304296. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “If I Had Eyes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.