A conventional construal of language is to view it as a form of encoded message passing. An alternative way to frame discussion of language is to consider the many changes that cumulatively and significantly altered our species and our capacities, when compared to the apes. This latter framing does not necessarily pick out a single system, and so some researchers are now exploring the broader notion of languaging, which points to many forms of embodied social interaction that give rise to the temporally extended coordination required to ground shared ideologies and shared worlds. When this stance is adopted, it is apparent that the eyes and the voice are strongly intertwined. We might usefully consider and contrast the role of gaze in conversation and in unison speech. In the former, we find gaze acting as a sensitive marker of engagement, modulating relations among speakers and listeners. In the latter, as in prayer and protest, the link between the voice and the eyes is very different. If there is a leader (e.g. a liturgical celebrant or a protest leader), there is a common focus for gaze, but it is no longer active, probing and mutually negotiated. If there is no leader (e.g. when singing Happy Birthday or reciting a common Credo) the eyes appear to be simply free. Developing this train of thought further, a related contrast arises in comparing unison speech with the activity of jointly watching a narrative film. In the former, the voices are synchronised, and the eyes are free. In the latter case, gaze is roughly synchronised across many individuals, while the voices are silent. We thus identify three points that differ in their relation to the construction of a shared world: unison voices (eyes free) in which we enact a common subjectivity, the dancing eyes and voices of dialogue, and the linked eyes and silent voices as we consume a shared narrative representation.