"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 blue eyes, pale, blue and/or eyes:
“This side of the truth,
You may not see, my son,
King of your blue eyes
In the blinding country of youth,
That all is undone,
Under the unminding skies....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“I exulted like “a pagan suckled in a creed” that had never been worn at all, but was brand-new, and adequate to the occasion. I let science slide, and rejoiced in that light as if it had been a fellow creature. I saw that it was excellent, and was very glad to know that it was so cheap. A scientific explanation, as it is called, would have been altogether out of place there. That is for pale daylight.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At twelve, the disintegration of afternoon
Began, the return to phantomerei, if not
To phantoms. Till then, it had been the other way:
One imagined the violet trees but the trees stood green,
At twelve, as green as ever they would be.
The sky was blue beyond the vaultiest phrase.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“On like the wind they hurried, and Morgan rode in advance;
Bright were his eyes like live coals, as he gave me a sideways
glance;
And I was just breathing freely, after my choking pain,
When the last one of the troopers suddenly drew his rein.”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)