"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:
“who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“He wants to treat everybody’s eyes with the same drops.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)