A Whiter Shade Of Pale We skipped the light fandangoTurned cartwheels 'cross the floorI was feeling kind of seasickBut the crowd called out for moreThe room was humming harderAs the ceiling flew awayWhen we called out for another drinkThe waiter brought a trayAnd so it was that laterAs the miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of paleShe said there is no reasonAnd the truth is plain to seeBut i wandered through my playing cardsAnd i would not let her beOne of the sixteen vestal virginsWho were leaving for the coastAnd although my eyes were openThey might just as well've been closedAnd so it was that laterAs the miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of pale Uma Måscara Branca e Pålida Nós dançamos o fandango suaveGiramos piruetas pelo salãoEu estava me sentido meio que enjoadoMas a multidão pediu maisA sala estava zumbindo com mais forçaEnquanto o teto se afastavaQuando nós pedimos outra bebidaO garçom trouxe uma bandejaE assim foi que mais tardeEnquanto o moleiro contava sua históriaQue o rosto dela, a principio fantasmagóricoFicou com uma tonalidade mais clara de pålidoEla disse Não existe nenhum motivoE a verdade é simples de perceberMas eu divagava através das minhas cartas do jogoE não deixaria ela serUma das dezesseis virgens vestaisQue estavam partindo para o litoralE embora meus olhos estivessem abertosEles simplesmente podiam também ter ficado fechadosE assim foi que mais tardeEnquanto o moleiro contava sua históriaQue o rosto dela, a principio fantasmagóricoFicou com uma tonalidade mais clara de pålido
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AWhiter Shade Of Pale. Procol Harum. John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix were both fascinated by it. It was the song of the Summer of Love. It has been covered by, among others, James Last, Willie
ï»żHome Features Classic Rock Image credit Ivan Keeman A Whiter Shade Of Pale was the main theme of the soundtrack to 1967âs Summer Of Love The Single when The Beatlesâ Sgt Pepper was The Album. At a time when the increasingly experimental British pop music of the mid to late Sixties was on the cusp, Procol Harumâs debut single did more than any other individual song to push it over the edge into what we now know as mournful lament with a teasing â even disturbing â lyric masquerading as a feel-good summer love song, AWSOP as it is known by its devotees was a conundrum from day one. Clearly inspired by other works, it clearly inspired other works. It was both classical and pop. It was soul without funk. It helped invent rock that didnât rock. It was a worldwide hit single by serious artistsâ that ushered in the era of the album as the true medium for serious artistsâ. It was the most successful record ever broken by pirate radio⊠just as pirate radio was about to sink below the waves and be replaced by something more official and was a pioneering quasi-independent release that ultimately allowed the band no freedom. Its success created a strong bargaining position for a coalition of behind-the-scenes music business operators, who went on to sell the products of the late-60s British underground to the world, thus establishing the genres of progressive rock, glam and heavy metal⊠and yet those operators almost immediately brushed Procol Harum the songâs impact was so immediate and huge that it made the bandâs subsequent career one long anti-climax. Even the 40th anniversary of its release was overshadowed by a bitter legal dispute, thanks to an ongoing legal tussle between Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher, who claimed he should be paid royalties for his sizeable contribution to the tune, and pianist Gary Brooker, its credited composer.Where thereâs a hit, thereâs a writ,â as the old adage has it. By far the most serious one to attach itself to AWSOP bided its time. Although there were occasional earlier public murmurs of discontent, it was May 2005 before Fisher brought an action against Brooker claiming he was entitled to 50 per cent of the latterâs royalties. In December 2006, Mr Justice Blackburne found in Fisherâs favour, awarding him 40 per cent of Brookerâs share of future payments. Brooker immediately launched an appeal.*Legal wrangling shouldnât be allowed to spoil the party for this extraordinary song, though, and if it has to go ahead without the guests of honour, then so be it. Not in literal and copyright terms, maybe, but in other respects AWSOP has long ceased to be the property of Procol Harum, anyway. It has become part of the culture, embedded in the public consciousness, modern folk an argument to be made that it started out that way, tooâŠIn 1966, the not-quite-20 year old Keith Reid responded to Bringing It All Back Home-era Bob Dylan by writing his own poetry-cum-lyrics in a similar style. Chris Blackwell, then in the process of repositioning his independent import-and-licensing label Island as an outlet for emerging talent on the British music scene, put him in touch with his A&R man Guy was already a British music business legend. The DJ at Mod hangout the Scene Club in 1963, he had the best R&B record collection in the country, and helped shape the early live repertoires of most of the British R&B bands of the early 60s, including The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Claptonâs various bands, The Spencer Davis Group â managed by Blackwell â and a Southend-based R&B outfit called The Paramounts, with a soulful singer-pianist named Gary Brooker. In 1964, Blackwell had put Stevens in charge of Island subsidiary Sue, to lease R&B tunes from the USA. But so enthusiastic had been Guyâs spending spree that it nearly bankrupted the parent company. Sue was about to be shelved, but Guyâs knowledge and taste couldnât be was in the process of assembling a new band, Traffic, around The Spencer Davis Groupâs talented vocalist, Steve Winwood. When Winwood turned Reidâs lyrics down, Stevens introduced the young wordsmith to the not-dissimilar Gary Brooker. The Paramounts had enjoyed little success, and decided to split in September 1966. âHe said Gary, this is Keith he writes lyrics. Keith, this is Gary he writes music!ââ Gary Brooker told journalist Chris Welch in 1997. In fact, Brooker didnât lack of original material had been The Paramountsâ main problem. Nevertheless, the newly retired 21-year-old went home with the proffered sheaf of lyrics. Reidâs ornate, literary constructions werenât easy to write for, or to sing, but something to Essex Music publishers, early collaborations were offered without success to Dusty Springfield, The Beach Boys and Love Affair. âIn the end Keith suggested that if nobody else was going to sing our songs, Iâd have to,â said Brooker. âWe sat down and thought about the type of band we needed. It was kind of like the stuff we had been listening to at Guy Stevensâs place American gospel and R&B using two keyboards. We wanted more sophisticated sound with Hammond organ and piano.â The wild mercuryâ organ was also a feature of mid-60s Dylan placed a Melody Maker ad in late January 1967, and most of the band was assembled over the following month, the classically trained Matthew Fisher first making contact at the end of February. The band were called Procol Harum at Stevensâs suggestion after the slightly misheard pedigree name of a friendâs Burmese came later than most of the other songs that would eventually make up the bandâs debut album, and the two composers at first failed to recognise its potential. When it was assigned to Essex Music on March 7, though, the head of the publishing company, David Platz, wrote to Brooker that same day to declare it a certain title had come first. In 1997, Keith Reid complained to Paul Carter of Shine On fanzine that the phrase had become common parlance without his receiving any credit for originating it. In the more humble days of 1967, though, he admitted to the Melody Maker that heâd overheard it at a gatheringâ. âSome guy looked at a chick and said to her Youâve gone a whiter shade of pale.â That phrase stuck in my mind.â The gathering was at Guy Stevensâs flat, the chickâ was Guyâs wife, Diane, the paleness was brought on by a amphetamine comedown, and the guyâ was Guy. Struggling with after-effects himself, heâd fluffed the everyday comment heâd intended to make, and come out with something magical Reid went home and wrote the lyric. Originally four verses long, it was eventually released in severely truncated form, which didnât help those who subsequently struggled to make sense of the surreal, bookish words. And 1967 was when decodingâ lyrics really became an international pastime. Like his mentor, Bob Dylan, Reid liked to reference figures from literature and myth, so the chorus line as the miller told his taleâ encouraged some to interpret the song as a psychedelic retelling of Geoffrey Chaucerâs The Millerâs Tale. âIâve never read Chaucer in my life,â was Reidâs response. âTheyâre right off the track there.âSmart enough to know that mystery plays better, and pays longer, than resolution, he didnât provide any more helpful directions, even suggesting that the underlying truth was plain to see. And heâs right, if you donât get too distracted by minutiae. In the fulllength version, the recurring images are of dancing and imbibing, drug-related disorientation and dislocation, resultant nausea, and â in the circumstances â an understandably clumsy attempt at seduction. All of which occur during and following a gathering. So itâs fair to assume that AWSOP was Reidâs attempt to sketch a word picture of his experiences on the night that provided the song with its title and he took delivery of the words, Gary Brooker placed them on his piano⊠and then played a little recreational Bach. While this might seem a bit highbrow for an R&B pianist, the particular piece he was attempting was Air On A G String, as recorded cocktail jazz-style by the Jacques Loussier Trio and featured in the TV and cinema ad for Hamlet cigars. âI got it a bit wrong,â he told DJ David Jensen in 2002. âI sort of remembered how the bass line went a bit, and I was stabbing around at the top of the piano. The bass line I had just kept going down. Then suddenly I found I got to the beginning of the bass run again, so I just kept it going.â Glancing at the lyric sitting in front of him, he realised he could make it Fisher had only just joined when Brooker and Reid assigned the song to Essex Music, so it wasnât until afterwards that he and the rest of the band really got a chance to work on it. âMatthew Fisher had been at the Guildhall School Of Music, and he felt immediately what I was trying to get at,â said Brooker in 2002. The two keyboard players started out taking turns to improvise between verses, stretching the already lengthy song out to 10 or 12 minutes. When it became clear to Guy Stevens that AWSOP was the strongest candidate for a debut single, though, sacrifices were required. The verse that was hardest to sing went first. Next was the extended instrumental interplay.âGary suggested that I take all the solos,â recalled Fisher. âWith that in mind I went home and planned out a definitive solo that would be the same every time.â He assembled it from the highlights of his earlier improvisations, but â with Brookerâs permission â had to âchange the bass line, and a couple of chords at one pointâ to make the result to DJ Ken Bruce in 2000, Fisher discussed the Bach influence âThat Air On A G String bit was pretty well down to Gary. I mean, he came up with that chord sequence and it was very strongly evocative of Air On A G String. So I went along with it, and then I drifted into this other thing, this Sleepers Awake thing [also Bach], but all the little bits apart from that, I did.âSometime before the end of March, Guy Stevens produced a full band demo at Marquee studios, and confidently presented it to Chris Blackwell. It sat on his desk for what seemed like an age⊠before he turned it down. Whereupon, Keith Reid decided he should be the bandâs manager, and Procol Harum also walked away from Guy Stevens. It was the first in a series of disappointments to blight Stevensâs life, and it hit especially hard when the song he had named, written by the songwriters he had put together, and recorded by the band he had both put together and named, went on to be such a massive hit. Always manic, over the following years he would become increasingly erratic. Itâs notable that his next attempt to assemble his idea of the perfect band, the admittedly much rawer Mott The Hoople, still adhered to the Procol Harum model a two-keyboard line-up, and Dylanesque words set to R&B 1967, the cutting edge of the British music business was as small as it was sharp, involving much socialising and show-and-tell. Denny Cordell was one of the many people to whom an excited Guy Stevens had played the AWSOP demo. Cordell had also run an Island offshoot, Aladdin, where he had picked up some basic production skills. Heâd gone on to work with Georgie Fame and the original Moody Blues, managed by Tony Secunda, and from late 1966, had been working as an independent producer with Secundaâs new band, The Move⊠and was based in the offices of Essex was no coincidence that Denny Cordellâs production company was called New Breed. The Move had been signed to Deram, a subsidiary label set up by Decca in late 1966 at the suggestion of their forward-thinking promotions man Tony Hall. Decca were perceived as being fuddy-duddy, and this label-within-a-label was intended to release exciting music by the same new breed of underground artistsâ that was attracting Chris Blackwellâs attention over at Musicâs David Platz was someone else whose livelihood depended upon being hip to such market shifts if matching songwriters to artists was on its way out thanks in no small part to The Beatles, then publishers needed to develop artists that wrote and recorded their own material. Other Essex artists already signed to Deram included Cat Stevens and David Procol Harum were already with Essex, the other parts of the jigsaw were just waiting to fall into place. Sometime in early April, Denny Cordell took the band into Olympic studios and recorded several new versions of the song. âWe used to try and crib the Stax sound, but at the time, on A Whiter Shade Of Pale, what I was trying to copy was When A Man Loves A Woman by Percy Sledge,â confessed Cordell. Not convinced that newly recruited Procol drummer Bobby Harrison was getting the right groove, he employed jazz drummer Bill Eyden, from Georgie Fameâs band, for the sessionIf anything, Cordell came a little too close to achieving his objective. Sledgeâs song had made in Britain in May 1966, and stayed on the charts for 17 weeks. Consequently, it had been as much in the airâ when Brooker wrote AWSOP as had been the Hamlet cigar ad. Cordellâs production just made a fairly obvious debt very obvious indeed. The subsequent focus on borrowings from Bach in Procol Harum interview was so much magicianly misdirection dead classical composers are less litigious than living popular ones. Sledge was no fool, though. He covered AWSOP almost immediately following its release, as a Stax single, no less though it was mysteriously deleted soon afterwards. In his live shows, it still provides an opportunity for him to effectively perform his greatest hit twice. âIt was â if you like, from one aspect â it was a soul ballad,â a noticeably hesitant Brooker admitted in far that makes the AWSOP songwriting credit read something like Reid/Stevens/Dylan/Carroll/ Brooker/Bach/Loussier/Sledge/Fisher⊠though Cordell might also conceivably have staked a claim to a piece of the action for his other significant contribution during recording. The song was still running at six to seven minutes, which â by all the prevailing laws of radio airtime â was too long for a successful single. So he cut the second-clumsiest verse, and faded the song out abruptly at the start of a chorus repeat, thus halving the song as originally written. In terms of maintaining narrative progression, Cordellâs edit was an act of utter vandalism; in terms of honing the song into an enigmatic four-minute gem, it was truly loved the song, but still couldnât make up his mind whether it was commercial enough, or if the cymbals were too splashy, or which of the four mixes heâd made was best. There was much prevarication before he finally played a noticeably worn acetate to Deramâs Tony Hall. Hall had no such doubts. He passed it on to Alan Keen, programme director for offshore pirate station Radio London, so Cordell could hear what it sounded like over the airwaves. DJ Mark Roman played the acetate at around on a Monday â April 17 being the likeliest date â remarked that it sounded like a hit to him, and invited listeners to ring the stationâs Curzon Street office if they agreed. The office was inundated with calls. Cordell had all the market research he needed, plus invaluable pre-release prepared to rush-release the single on May 12. Little had yet been organised or signed. Although Keith Reid was â nominally â filling the vacancy, the band didnât really have a manager. Denny Cordell had also learned the advantage of wearing more one hat. He brought Jonathan Weston in to act as Reidâs co-managerâ. Paperwork wasnât actually ready until four days after the singleâs release, whereupon Procol Harum signed a recording contract with Cordellâs New Breed Productions who had leased the song to Deram, and a management contract with Westonâs management company, also co-owned by Cordell. âWe never really chose any of them,â Brooker told ZigZag magazine in already pulled his masterstroke, further promotion was almost entirely unnecessary for Tony Hall. Pre-orders had flooded in. On May 14, AWSOP appeared from nowhere in the Radio London charts at the following week it was and the week after that The Jimi Hendrix and Beatles seal of approval was bestowed when Procol Harum were invited onto the bill of Hendrixâs showcase gig at Brian Epsteinâs Saville Theatre on June 4. The NME chart caught up with Radio London on June 7. By the time Procol appeared on Top Of The Pops in their brand new Kingâs Road finery, they were also in June 10, the recordâs success was a story in its own right, and the band were given the front page of Disc. The same weekâs NME announced By Monday night â just over three weeks after release â AWSOP had achieved 356,000 sales in this country alone. In France it has notched 120,000 in 10 days. The disc has now been released in every country in Western Europe, as well as in Australia and America.âThe single stayed at in the UK for six weeks, and remained on the chart for 15; million worldwide sales were reported within two monthsOn July 15, at which point the single was at in the US charts, it was announced that guitarist Ray Royer and drummer Bobby Harrison had left Procol Harum, and that Jonathan Weston was no longer the bandâs manager. It was hard not to read something into the fact that the new band recruits, guitarist Robin Trower and drummer BJ Wilson, were former members of Brookerâs old band The Paramounts, and that Westonâs replacement was Move manager Tony to Matthew Fisher, Weston was ousted because, instead of waiting to see how AWSOP fared, he had asked an agency to book the band a lengthy tour of small British venues. âThe result was that a few weeks later, when we were in the charts, we were playing for ÂŁ60 per night instead of ÂŁ500.â The sackings and resultant delays in would cost Procol dear. Who knows how much higher than AWSOP might have climbed in the American charts had the band gone over to promote it. Or how much quicker it would have been for them to establish themselves as a powerful live act at home and abroad. Things were further complicated when all three enforced departees instigated court proceedings. Even AWSOP session drummer Bill Eyden joined in and sued for a royalty. âIt all turned bad, horribly bad,â was how Brooker remembered it in 1997. âI donât think people ever got over that in Britain.âThe losses and legal expenses would ultimately be shouldered by the band. The behind-the-scenes triumvirate of Cordell, Hall and Platz could hear other, much bigger opportunities knocking. The success of his artists on Deram made Platz realise that he was missing a trick Decca were reaping too much of the benefit. He negotiated control of his own label Regal Zonophone with Deccaâs old rivals EMI. He funded Cordellâs independent production/management company in order to supply the raw materials it underwent a name change and was registered as Straight Ahead on July 3. Platz also provided funding for Tony Hall to leave Deram/Decca and set up as the independent Tony Hall Enterprises⊠to promote Regal Zonophone releases. Some Essex acts were nailed down tightly at Deram/Decca. Those that werenât â notably The Move and Procol, whose recordings had been leased to Deram via the now defunct New Breed â joined the exodus to Regal were complicit in much of this, evidently happy enough to go along with what possibly quite little part of it they fully understood at the time. There were positives control was wrested away from the major labels, without losing the benefits of their pressing and distribution facilities. And they had a streamlined, smart and forward-thinking team around them⊠But what about the conflict of interests? Procol now found themselves essentially working for a flexible, multi-headed, many-named, but ultimately self-interested organisation that controlled â and derived income from â their recording label, publishing company, management, production and in August 1967, Regal Zonophone wasnât ready to roll until September 2, nearly fourth months after the release of AWSOP. Tellingly, the honour of the first release was given to The Move with Flowers In The Rain. Procol Harum had to wait until September 30 before Homburg was the new labelâs third release. That very day saw the high-profile launch of the new Radio One. A Denny Cordell production for Regal Zonophone was chosen to be the first record played Flowers In The Rain, which climbed to in the charts. Homburg reached in the UK and sold a million copies, but it still felt like a let-down. Even more so when the single stalled at in the States. The delay hadnât helped matters, but in truth Cordellâs choice of follow-up was also misguided whereas AWSOP had been stately and intriguing, Homburg was melancholy and wilfully obscure. The band had other, more commercial songs in the fault was partly the choice of song, agrees Fisher. âIt was basically Keith and Garyâs idea,â he says. âAt the time, I liked the record and couldnât understand why it wasnât better received.â Having recently heard the first two Procol Harum singles on the radio, though, he acknowledges âWhere AWSOP sounded mysterious and intriguing, Homburg sounded plodding, turgid and just plain miserable⊠like some other band trying to produce another AWSOP and failing.â There were other, far more commercially obvious songs in the can. Fisher suspects the selection was partly motivated by rivalry. âGary wrote a piano introduction to show that he could write classically-styled instrumental passages just as well as I could.âProcol had other handicaps. Not having been able to play live for a few months due to line-up changes, the band found themselves in a position where they were too big for clubs and package tours, but not well enough established for major venue showcases. It was December before Procol Harum was released in the UK. AWSOP was conspicuous by it absence, and without its lure, the album â shockingly â failed to chart at all. Released four months earlier in the States, and including the Big Single, the album had managed to show at without much in the way of promotion. In March 1968, when AWSOP was declared International Song Of The Year at the Ivor Novello Awards, it already felt like a posthumous gesture for their British soon as he got involved with Joe Cocker in 1968, Denny Cordell abandoned any pretence of being interested in Procol Harum He first fobbed them off on his deputy, Tony Visconti, and then left them to their own devices. Meanwhile, The Move, Cocker and Tyrannosaurus Rex all had hits for Regal Zonophone. After disagreements with David Platz, Cordell departed for America. But Platz had kept on diversifying, establishing similar arrangements with several other independent producers. He also launched a new label at Pye, called Fly, again moving over his choice bands, including The Move and the truncated But not Procol Harum. This time it was that had the big hits. Around the same time, Platz funded the first recordings for Black Sabbath, who were subsequently signed to Vertigo at the next few years, Procol Harum remained Reasonably Big In The USA and Fairly Sizeable In Europe, but Largely Ignored At Home, where they settled into the role of absentee prog rock band usually placing in the 30s and 40s of the album charts. Disillusioned, Matthew Fisher left the band for the first time in 1969. A year after Procol Harumâs 1971 escape from Regal Zonophone to Chrysalis, David Platzâs former Fly label â by then rechristened Cube â re-released AWSOP whereupon it returned to in the British singles chart. The bandâs first hit single in five years was the same as their first⊠and on a label that had never had anything to do with them. Ow! Procol Harum underwent more line-up changes, and kept doggedly making albums. They even had a couple more British hit singles, but split for the first time in has just kept on skipping the light fandango, its success and influence surviving the band that made it, and many of the movers and shakers that made it happen. The original recording has sold in excess of 6 million copies. In 2004, Radio 2 declared it the UKâs most played record of the last 70 Keith Reid noted, the title had become a stock phrase â to prove it, his name now appears alongside Chaucerâs in the Oxford Dictionary Of Quotations â and is often punningly adapted to provide headlines and photo captions in the press. The tune is both an alternative wedding march and a very alternative funeral dirge. The intro is a popular mobile in later days how they felt about the song, Brooker and Fisherâs responses were perhaps surprising, in that they ran contrary to the outcome of the initial court ruling. âIf youâre going to have a hit that will always be with you, then you couldnât wish for it to be much better than that one,â says Gary blessing or curse? âCurse. Absolutely,â says Matthew Fisher. âNo question.âNevertheless, itâs no exaggeration to say that A Whiter Shade Of Pale has been woven into the daily fabric of our lives*The Court of Appeal upheld Fisherâs co-authorship, but ruled that he should receive no royalties as he had taken too long to make his claim, and full royalty rights rights were returned to Gary Brooker. Fisher was granted permission to appeal this decision to the House of Lords, and on July 30 2009 they unanimously ruled in his favour. Brooker died in 2022. This feature was originally published in Classic Rock to Mike Butler, Roland Clare, Campbell Devine, John Fenton, Ronen Guha, Claes Johansen, Martin Perez, Mafalda Platz and Paul Trynka. Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox! Most Popular
In1967, British group Procol Harum released one of the few singles to sell 10 million copies worldwide: "A Whiter Shade of Pale." The members that recorded the song were Gary Brooker (vocals and piano), Matthew Fisher (Hammond M-102 organ), bassist David Knights, Ray Royer on guitar and session drummer Bill Eyden (later replaced by Bobby Harrison).
A Whiter Shade of Pale We skipped the light FandangoTurned cartwheels 'cross the floorI was feeling kind of seasickBut the crowd called out for moreThe room was humming harderAs the ceiling flew awayWhen we called out for another drinkThe waiter brought a trayAnd so it was laterAs the Miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of paleShe said there is no reasonAnd the truth is plain to seeBut I wandered through my playing cardsAnd would not let her beOne of sixteen vestal virginsWho were leaving for the coastAnd although my eyes were openThey might just as well've been closedAnd so it was laterAs the Miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of paleTurned a whiter shade of paleTurned a whiter shade of paleTurned a whiter shade of pale Ainda Mais PĂĄlida Dançamos o fandango suaveGirando pelo salĂŁoEu estava meio tontoMas a multidĂŁo queria maisE o pessoal comentava cada vez maisEnquanto o teto rodavaQuando pedimos outra bebidaO garçom trouxe uma bandejaE foi mais tardeQuando Miller contava sua histĂłriaQue seu rosto a princĂpio apenas fantasmagĂłricoFicou ainda mais pĂĄlidaEla disse que nĂŁo hĂĄ motivoE a verdade Ă© cristalinaMas eu consultei as cartas do baralhoE nĂŁo permitira que ela fosseUma das dezesseis virgens vestaisQue partiam para o litoralE embora meus olhos estivessem abertosDaria no mesmo se estivessem fechadosE isso foi antesDo Miller contar sua histĂłriaQuando contou, o rosto dela empalideceu imediadamenteFicou ainda mais pĂĄlidaFicou ainda mais pĂĄlidaFicou ainda mais pĂĄlidaFicou ainda mais pĂĄlida
ProcolHarum is a British group formed in 1967, it connait a success crashing to pieces with title A Whiter Shade of Pale, classified n° 1 in the United Kingdom and n° 5 in the United States. The small pocket of the disc gives them false airs of Beatles, marketing obliges. In Whiter Shade of Pale was taken again by Annie Lennox in 1995, in its Medusa album.
A Whiter Shade Of Pale We skipped the light fandangoTurned cartwheels 'cross the floorI was feeling kinda seasickBut the crowd called out for moreThe room was humming harderAs the ceiling flew awayWhen we called out for another drinkThe waiter brought a trayAnd so it was that laterAs the miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of paleShe said, 'there is no reasonAnd the truth is plain to seeBut I wandered through my playing cardsAnd would not let her beOne of sixteen vestal virginsWho were leaving for the coastAnd although my eyes were openThey might have just as well've been closedAnd so it was that laterAs the miller told his taleThat her face, at first just ghostlyTurned a whiter shade of pale Um Tom Mais Claro de Palidez NĂłs dançamos o suave fandangoGirando pelo salĂŁoEu estava me sentindo meio enjoadoMas a multidĂŁo pedia maisO barulho no salĂŁo estava ficando maiorEnquanto o teto voava para longeQuando pedimos mais uma bebidaO garçom trouxe a bandejaE foi aĂ que mais tardeEnquanto o moleiro contava sua histĂłriaO rosto dela, a princĂpio apenas fantasmagĂłricoTransformou se em um tom mais claro de palidezEla disse NĂŁo hĂĄ razĂŁo nenhumaE a verdade Ă© simples de verMas eu me distraĂa no meu jogo de cartasE nĂŁo deixaria ela serUma das dezesseis virgens vestaisQue estavam partindo para o litoralE embora meus olhos estivessem abertosEles podem muito bem ter estado fechadosE foi aĂ que mais tardeEnquanto o moleiro contava sua histĂłriaO rosto dela, a princĂpio apenas fantasmagĂłricoTransformou se em um tom mais claro de palidez
LirikLagu. The Influence of Music on the Development of Children. Baixar agora. Pular para a pĂĄgina . VocĂȘ estĂĄ na pĂĄgina 1 de 263. Pesquisar no documento . OUT OF T. This kind of thing could get sticky, but it works because the songs are so goodespecially Pale Blue Eyes, Im Beginning to See the Light, and the instrumental passages in
By Dr Oliver Tearle Loughborough University Few songs of the 1960s, outside of The Beatlesâ later output, has perhaps inspired more head-scratching than Procol Harumâs 1967 hit A Whiter Shade of Paleâ. Even the bandâs name is likely to invite puzzled looks from people who first encounter it. Who, or what, is a procol harumâ? And what does describing something as a whiter shade of paleâ actually mean? Because the meaning of this song is so elusive, we thought weâd turn some literaru-critical hermeneutics onto its baffling lyrics. Here, then, is an analysis of the curious meaning of A Whiter Shade of Paleâ ⊠as far as we can determine it. A Whiter Shade of Paleâ song meaning People have disagreed over which interpretation of the songâs lyrics is the correctâ one, but a starting-point must surely be the person who wrote the lyrics Keith Reid. In the February 2008 issue of Uncut magazine, Reid explained that he was trying to conjure a mood, and was attempting to be evocative, rather than deliberately mysterious. He added that the song was influenced by books, not drugs. Nevertheless, a mood is not enough by itself most songs have a storyâ, even if the story is elliptically told and half-buried beneath mood-making. The first verse of the song certainly suggests some kind of dance, with skipping the light fandango sounding like a portmanteau of tripping the light fantasticâ, a well-known idiom relating to dancing derived from a poem by John Milton, and the Spanish and Portuguese dance, the fandango. The references to ordering another drink from the waiter reinforces this idea that the singer is with someone a lover? at a dancehall or club. Certainly the mood is one of someone having an ecstatic, dizzying experience how many drinks had been consumed before they called out for another one, we wonder?, perhaps because they are being swept away by the experience of dancing, but perhaps also because of the company they are with. The song has several suggestive allusions to sex. Those vestal virgins denote purity, of course, but the singer doesnât want the subject of the song to be among their number which is given, with enigmatic specificity, as sixteen. The Vestal Virgins in ancient Rome actually numbered six, and were priestesses of Vesta, goddess of the hearth â yes, she was the one after whom the brand of matches was named. Similarly, the reference to the miller who tells his tale has puzzled many people trying to illuminate the meaning of the song, and one cannot help calling to mind the Miller from Chaucerâs Canterbury Tales who tells a story which is all about sex and farting, though that bit is perhaps less relevant to the Procol Harum song. Even those who opt for Henry Miller over Chaucerâs bawdy millowner have to impute a sexual meaning to the reference Millerâs 1934 novel Tropic of Cancer has been banned on numerous occasions for its sexually explicit content. So in short, what we have is a tantalisingly glimpsed storyâ involving a man at a dance, losing himself among the music, the drinks, and the women, and a possible sexual encounter later on, potentially involving the woman losing her virginity hence those vestal virgins, but also the symbolism of that colour white, in the songâs title. A Whiter Shade of Paleâ analysis It is difficult to overestimate just how popular A Whiter Shade of Paleâ was when it was released by the new band Procol Harum in 1967. The hit belongs to a select club of songs which have sold over 10 million copies other sixties tracks to manage that feat include The Monkeesâ Iâm a Believerâ and, perhaps more surprisingly, Kyu Sakamotoâs Sukiyakiâ. Keith Reid was responsible for the enigmatic lyrics to the record, while frontman Gary Brooker provided the music a later lawsuit ruled that Matthew Fisher had co-written the music with Brooker. The distinctive organ on the single was played by Fisher, who just a few weeks prior to recording the song had been performing with Screaming Lord Sutch, later to become leader of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, who was then playing with his band, the Savages. However, J. S. Bachâs classic Air on a G Stringâ has also been noted as an influence on the songâs melody. But where did the title originate? That was supposedly provided by Reid overhearing someone at a party saying to a woman that sheâd turned a whiter shade of paleâ. Of course, semantically the title makes little sense it should be a paler shade of whiteâ, not a whiter shade of paleâ. We have shades of colours, and those shades include pale shades. But somehow the unusual semantics of the title helped to make it more mysterious, perhaps even more poetic, and such things certainly didnât do any harm when the Summer of Love was at its peak the single went to number 1 in the UK on 8 June 1967. The poet and critic A. E. Housman, in his 1933 lecture The Name and Nature of Poetryâ, considered one of Shakespeareâs songs Even Shakespeare, who had so much to say, would sometimes pour out his loveliest poetry in saying nothing. Take O take those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love, but sealâd in vain, sealâd in vain. That is nonsense; but it is ravishing poetry. We might apply such a statement to A Whiter Shade of Paleâ, perhaps with the caveat that the word poetryâ should be altered to great songwritingâ. If Reid intended to conjure a mood with his lyrics, the song succeeds in doing so, but the organ music is an integral part of the songâs evocative power as important as the mellotron is to The Moody Bluesâ Nights in White Satinâ, another 1967 song; itâs one reason why the cover versions of the song â and there have been over 1,000 of them to date â usually fail where the original succeeds. We began by commenting on the strangeness of the bandâs name. They took their distinctive and memorable name from a male blue Burmese cat, which belonged to a friend named Liz Coombes. Curiously, the spelling Procol Harumâ was a result of a bad telephone line the catâs pedigree name was actually Procul Harun, but the name was taken down over the telephone, and was misspelled.
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a whiter shade of pale lirik