Top Ten Non-Hit Eye Songs: Crazy Eyes (#8)

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Oh, you knew this was coming. I'm sure that people were thinking how I could get this favorite or that favorite in this list of songs with "eyes" in the title. Plenty more favorites coming...and one surprise: no Elton John's "Blue Eyes"! But for the obscure song, I'm going with a longtime favorite. #8: Crazy Eyes - Poco Actually, this is killing two birds with one stone: it's by a favorite, and about another favorite. This was the final album Richie Furay made with Poco. For this title cut, the band turned to an old song (written in 1969, per Picky Wedia) that Furay wrote about Gram Parsons (who had just left the Byrds and formed the Flying Burrito Brothers). There's a great quote about the song from Furay in Wikipedia, too: "I just had a little folk song, and the next thing I knew: wow! It was a whole production that stayed true to the original intent of the song." What's so ironic about this tribute to Parsons: the album was released September 15, 1973. Four days later, Parsons was dead of an OD. It's almost like Furay knew Parsons wasn't long for this world. "Crazy Eyes" is over nine minutes long, so I'll understand if you don't listen to it. But man, what a great tune. Crazy Eyes Written by Richie Furay Recorded by Poco From Crazy Eyes, 1973 Down along the South Carolina pines: