Isaak

July 29, 1999
Web posted at: 11:23 a.m. EDT (1523 GMT)

From Jim Moret
CNN Entertainment News Correspondent

HOLLYWOOD (CNN) -- Have you caught yourself humming the guitar-laced refrain of "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing" under your breath sometime in the last month or so?

It has strummed along in the heads of a lot of people lately, especially since it's been almost impossible to avoid hearing it in the publicity campaign for Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."

Not that you'd necessarily want to avoid it.

"I like the song," Isaak says of his "new" hit single. "It's a lot of fun to play in concert, because it (has) a lot of energy to it. And (it's) kind of fun for me also, because it's kind of a little twisted."

For months, all audiences knew of "Eyes Wide Shut" came from provocative footage of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, underscored by this haunting Chris Isaak song. It should come as small surprise that the film has proven to be a good, good thing for the career of the singer-songwriter.

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"Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing" [195k MPEG-3] or [270k WAV] (Courtesy Reprise Records)

The song's not new. Isaak first released it in 1995 on his "Forever Blue" album.

He was a guest on "The Tonight Show" when a lawyer first called requesting the rights to use his song in a movie. "They said, 'Well, it's blah, blah, blah, and it's Stanley Kubrick,' and I went 'Yes. The answer is capital, capital letters: YES.'"

Kubrick's decision breathed new life into "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing." Not only have sales of the 4-year-old album gone up, but interest has also been high in the song's new video, for which Isaak teamed up with photographer-director Herb Ritts.

Their music video for the song is deemed so sexually suggestive, VH1 plans to play the unedited version only after 9 p.m.

"I'd heard the song actually when I was in Australia photographing Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman recently," Ritts says. "And Tom had played me the trailer for 'Eyes Wide Shut.' And I heard the song and I said, 'That's such an interesting song, what is that?' And he goes, 'It's Chris Isaak's.' And I said, 'Oh, wow.' And I got back and it was still in my head."

By coincidence, not long after that, Warner Bros. -- which released "Eyes Wide Shut" -- asked Ritts to make a new video for the song. He says he was pleased to comply.

And Isaak was pleased to get him. "He's got a great eye," he says, "and what that means is he makes people look better than they are. He can take a seedy motel like this (the one featured in the video) and make it somehow beautiful."

Neither Isaak nor Ritts had seen "Eyes Wide Shut" when they made their video, which, apart from the film, stands to be a hit in its own right.

"I hope it sells millions," Isaak says. "But more immediately, my real excitement was the idea that Kubrick was somewhere in a room listening to my piece of work and was excited enough by it that he said, 'I want to put that in my movie.'"