The Blue Mask is the eleventh solo studio album by American rock musician Lou Reed, released on February 23, 1982 by RCA Records. Reed had returned to the label after having left Arista Records. The album was released around Reed's 40th birthday, and covers topics of marriage and settling down, alongside themes of violence, paranoia, and alcoholism. Production and recording Reed and Robert Quine's guitars were mixed separately in the right and left stereo channels respectively. To differentiate his guitar's sound from Reed's, Quine used D tuning, playing each song as if it was one major second higher. For example, "Heavenly Arms" is in G major, so Quine used fingerings for A major to play the song. Quine, who years earlier followed the Velvet Underground across the country and taped several of their early shows (they were later released as Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes), made for a suitable complement to Reed. Quine also toured in support of the album and can be seen on the recorded The Bottom Line show titled A Night with Lou Reed (1983). Quine later described the album as, "a record that I'm particularly proud of. We had never played together before going into the studio. There were no rehearsals and most of it was done in one or two takes. I like all the things that I've done with Lou but that will always be special for me." Quine and Reed share the distinction of being named to Rolling Stone'''s Top 100 Guitarists of All-Time List. Fernando Saunders, who subsequently became a longtime Reed collaborator, plays the bass and adds backing vocals (most noticeably, a falsetto refrain in the outro to "Heavenly Arms") to this album and can also be seen in A Night with Lou Reed. Saunders later said, "it was like a dream come true. Lou wanted me to play the things no one would ever let me play, the things I would sit in my bedroom and play. Suddenly I was glad I hadn't quit music for my uncle's insurance company." The album contains no instrumental overdubs with the exception of Reed's guitar on "My House", but all vocals were overdubbed with the exception of "The Heroine". The drummer for the album was studio musician Doane Perry, who later joined Jethro Tull. The album cover was designed by Reed's then wife, Sylvia, and features a blue version of a