Shock. I simply could not believe it when the National Public Radio announcer made reference to the fact that Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was the most publicly played (meaning via jukebox…) song in U.K. history for the past 75 years. I mean…surely there has to be some mistake. Not that I don’t generally love hearing it whenever it happens upon the radio, but it’s a staggering thing to figure when you consider what else Britons might have been tapping their toes to since 1934. Sinatra, The Stones, Sir Cliff, Abba…name it. Not there. Not even in the top three according to the report.
Having been two at the time of it’s release, I don’t think I became aware of the song until I was in my mid-twenties when I read an account of a very stoned pair of Beatles listening to it over and over on the record player inside John Lennon’s Roller. When I finally sought it out, I thought: “My God….Traffic!” It wasn’t until I sat behind a drum kit playing the song in a covers band that I came to grips with it. Band rehearsals are mostly dreadful yet necessary evils, but I do remember one early morning session where we actually got through a fairly decent rendering of it just as the sun began to purl through the grimy windows of our practice space. There was something to it just then, that made it all seem…er, beatific.
Nevertheless, I’m still half unconvinced of the tally. I’d read about the bitter lawsuits surrounding the song’s royalties, so maybe there is something to it’s apparent standing…but #1? Really? Could they have that large of an extended family? Even my wife, who long ago buried her tolerance for pop minutia thanks to me, was staggered by the idea of it.
I was, however, forced to re-harness a portion of my disbelief tonight after running back to the office to retrieve my forgotten laptop. As I was turning back into my neighborhood on the return trip, “A Whiter Shade…” promptly appeared on the airwaves. Unbelievable.
5 Responses to Harum Scarum…
joe,
it is a shocking story, is it not…
it made more sense to me when with baited breath I anticipated the new single that James Hall was going to send me not too long ago. with grand disappointment i received this http://www.myspace.com/jameshall
he always was a true anglofile…
keep up the good work. nelson
Yeah, I’m with you, Joe.
I’ve written features about this song for a couple of mags but, in my heart of hearts, I’ve never really understood its enduring appeal.
Musically it’s a bit lugubrious, the melody was a Bach-like pastiche, the vocal (as you point out) was pseudo-Steve Winwood, and the lyric … well, let’s just say it probably sounded fine on acid but most songs that achieve evergreen status have lyrics that can be understood by normal human beings in a non-chemically enhanced state.
I don’t actively dislike it but it wouldn’t be in my Top Ten anything songs. I did a compilation I called Acid Drops, which was non-stop psychedelic gems but I didn’t even put it on there.
Maybe we need someone from the corpus of RBP contributors to explain what we’re missing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOav4guQs7Y
“Poxiest bleedin’ lyrics ever written.”
Don’t beat around the bush, Tim. Say what you mean…
If you don’t understand the lyrics, then you didn’t first hear this glorious record on the radio upon it’s release in May of 67. Like so much of the music that came out that year, when it floated out of the radio (Radio Luxembourg in my case), it sounded like the most magical telling of…. who knew? But who cared! The organ, the lyrics, the sound of the record…all seemed so amazing. And then, the next record would be played, and it was “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” and your jaw would drop at the wonder of it all. Unfortunately, the next record might be “Edelweiss” by Vince Hill or some piece of dross by Englebert. To understand the magic of “Whiter”, I guess you had to be there in the context of 1967.