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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 mountain top,
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.
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 mountain top,
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.
Lyrics submitted by capitol76
Track duration: 05:41
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Only proves you're my best friend'
To me these lines are the key and explaines his unrequited love. She is the one who is married. They are having an afair and he wants her to leave her husband to prove her love for him. Probably she is not willing to leave him and he complains that she 'only proves she's his friend and nothing more' ..... This is wat hurts him most.... (i've been there)
I love ghost of freud's and confinedinsanity's descriptions - "hauntingly beautiful" and "unbearably pogniant". One of the Velvet's greatest. I've been thinking I should try to pick up the guitar again so I can play this song.
A number people (swallowedthefly, ioioio,swing2xlani) have discussed unrequited love aspect of the song - loving a best friend, loving someone that can't return the love. I think that's a big part of the song- but my full interpretation is follows KILBY's and lou reed's interpretation (which seem to be supported by Lou) - that they broke up, he wants toget back together, but she has married.
I like bagism's interpretation of the money line, and tcobo's description of why he is "mad"
I first heard this song on the Live'69 once. The first version I owned was on a Patti Smith bootleg. Unlike thefatlady's bootleg, Patti introduces the song as "about Hank William who died of a drug overdose in a hammock in the back of a limosine..." great poetry on Patti's part, but hard to believe that is what was on Lou's mind (along with incorrect facts of Hank's death).
I do have a bootleg version of the song by the Velvets with a few more verses. If I get my act together I'll try to write them down and submit them here (no promises I'll get around to it).
Only proves you're my best friend'
To me these lines are the key and explaines his unrequited love. She is the one who is married. They are having an afair and he wants her to leave her husband to prove her love for him. Probably she is not willing to leave her husband and he complaines that she 'only proves she's his friend and nothing more' ..... This is wat hurts him most.... (i've been there)
When a relationship is not resolved, it carries with it some pathos of agony. And that is what makes a song so appealing to so many. Because who among us does not have some feelings towards someone at some point in their life where they were not torn apart by love?
The song is mellow, too, and that makes is sad, and slow and romantic. If it was screeched at you like some of the rap songs--it would not be so beautiful.
The only lines I don't like: "The fact that you are married
Only proves you're my best friend'
Really? I think he/she should get over that! If they went and got married, or were married, I would suggest moving on. It does belie the first part of the song. However, it all ties up in that unrequited love part. And everyone wants what they can't have, so there you go.
I really liked this whole CD.
i love how it's such a slow song, it gives you time to settle in and really get the effect of what the lyrics are saying.
every single line i can relate to, in my own way.
'The fact that you are married
Only proves you're my best friend'.
But this doesn't really work - it's belied in the first verse: 'Mostly you just make me mad'. Mad at yourself for loving them. Mad that they do not love you. And mad with the anguish this causes.
This song breaks my heart, in part because it is so perfectly-formed. The punchline, that this is not just a lost love, or a troubled relationship, but is instead a pure instance of unrequited love, makes the song for me. They are married, you are not, what you want can never come to pass. What is left? The shame of loving without being loved back and the lingering image of pale blue eyes.
basically the song has a feeling of wanting to reject what happend... wanting to move past it because it hurts. but on the other hand the hurt feels kind of good.. lets you know your alive. lets you know you tried & didn't just let it pass. so he's admiting she lingers inside him, this hurts him, but he lets it happen. it's like a confession.
(this is just what the song means to me... i get that kinda of feeling just from the sound; lyrics second)
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.
Thought of you as my mountain top,
Thought of you as my peak.
Thought of you as everything,
I've had but couldn't keep.
really beautiful
i love this song