velvet underground, “pale blue eyes”
from: the velvet underground 1969
Just how do band assemblages occur? Its members, it sounds, its ilk, its territory, its life span, its gathering history? Impossible as it may be to assign credit for the Velvet Underground, something was brewing in young Lou Reed as he attended Syracuse University and had the teeming poet Delmore Schwartz as his English professor! Did the underbelly of the American cityscape and mores beckon his interest? You got me. Whatever the case, a rich body of work has been left in their wake, offering provocative rock anthems, personal diaries, drug odysseys and tender relational ballads like “Pale Blue Eyes” that leave one stunned.
“Sometimes I feel so happy
Sometimes I feel so sad
Sometimes I feel so happy
But mostly you just make me mad
Baby, you just make me mad
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Thought of you as my mountaintop
Thought of you as my peak
Thought of you as everything
I’ve had, but couldn’t keep
I’ve had, but couldn’t keep
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
I’d put you in the mirror
I put in front of me
I put in front of me
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Skip a life completely
Stuff it in a cup
She said, “Money is like us in time
It lies, but can’t stand up”
Down for you is up
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
It was good what we did yesterday
And I’d do it once again
The fact that you are married
Only proves you’re my best friend
But it’s truly, truly a sin
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes”
