In his memoir,
Dancing with Myself (2014), Idol explained he had always been fascinated with old black and white horror films, including the 1960 French film
Les Yeux sans visage (
Eyes Without a Face), directed by
Georges Franju. The film concerns a plastic surgeon who vowed to restore the face of his daughter who had been disfigured in a car crash; this quest leads him to murder victims and graft their facial features onto his daughter in an attempt to restore her beauty. By the end, all that remains of her original face is her eyes, thus making her "eyes without a face". Idol saw some parallel between the film and the moral decay he experienced living in New York in the 1980s: In the studio, Idol gave guitarist
Steve Stevens the melody, lyrics and basic structure. Stevens fleshed it out with a revolving four-chord pattern (Emaj7–C#m–G#m–B). Stevens then came up with a
hard rock guitar riff in the middle of the song. Idol improvised
rap verses over the riff because "rap was everywhere in New York at the time, in all the discos and clubs, so it made sense after my croon to start talking streetwise over Steve's supersonic barrage of sound." Idol's then-girlfriend
Perri Lister sings backing vocals during the chorus, repeating the French phrase "Les yeux sans visage" ("Eyes without a face"), the original title of the film. Idol wanted a prominent bass guitar part reminiscent of
reggae. He and Stevens had trouble with this part of the song until they met bassist
Sal Cuevas, a New York musician best known for working in
salsa music and on Broadway, who performed the part to their satisfaction. == Critical reception ==