Pale Blue Eyes

"Pale Blue Eyes"
Song

"Pale Blue Eyes" is a song written by Lou Reed and performed by The Velvet Underground. It was included on the band's eponymous 1969 album The Velvet Underground.

"Pale Blue Eyes"- along with a number of Lou's other songs- was inspired by his college sweetheart and muse, Shelly Albin who indeed had pale blue eyes.

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".

Cover versions

"Pale Blue Eyes" has later been adopted by several bands/artist. In addition to Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker from Velvet Underground, also Eric Andersen, Alejandro Escovedo, Neil Finn, Counting Crows, Hole, Marisa Monte, R.E.M., Tom McRae and Patti Smith have their own versions of this song.

An instrumental version of the song was used in Julian Schnabel's 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The song was also used in a scene of the 2008 film August.

The original song was featured during the final scenes of the January 25, 2009 episode of Cold Case (CBS) entitled "The Brush Man". This program regularly features music popular during the time when the cold case being investigated had occurred. Although the murder in this episode occurred in 1967, "Pale Blue Eyes" was on the album entitled "The Velvet Underground" that was released in 1969. The song was also featured in an episode of Crossing Jordan. The song is featured twice in Adventureland a 2009 film.