"Pale Blue Eyes" is a song written by Lou Reed and performed by The Velvet Underground. It was included on the band's 1969 album The Velvet Underground.
"Pale Blue Eyes" was surprisingly written about someone whose eyes were hazel, as Reed notes in his book Between Thought and Expression.
The song is dedicated to Shelley Albin, Reed's first love, who at the time was married to another man.
The original song has five verses. First verse starts: "Sometimes I feel so happy; sometimes I feel so sad." The refrain goes: "Linger on your pale blue eyes".
When deciding on a song to play for the first reunion of The Velvet Underground at the Fondation Cartier in 1990, Lou Reed initially said he wanted to play "Pale Blue Eyes", but when someone reminded him that the song was from after John Cale's tenure with the band, Reed declared "then it will have to be Heroin".
Read more about Pale Blue Eyes: Notable Cover Versions
Famous quotes containing the words pale, blue and/or eyes:
“Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
“Pass in, pass in,” the angels say,”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.”
—Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821–1881)
“And my eyes are blue;
So ferry me across the water,
Do, boatman, do!”
“Step into my ferry-boat,
Be they black or blue,”
—Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830–1894)