Procol Harum

Only a few days have passed since the death of Gary Brooker, voice and founding member of Procol Harum, and the sorrow for this sad event has not yet fully faded. Watching his early videos today, that of “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” in particular, can only stir a strong sense of nostalgia for a golden season that is over but not forgotten. But once the pang of grief passes, it's time to reflect on what the music of Gary Brooker and his band represented. It was the second half of the Sixties, an era of a huge explosion of youthful creativity that reworked the fruits of the previous decade's blues and rock'n'roll, laying the groundwork from which practically all the rock of the following years would spring. It was the age of beat, of garage, but above all of the newborn psychedelic rock, with its British and American variants, where avant-garde (Velvet Underground, Red Krayola), jazz (Soft Machine), folk (Byrds) and baroque experimentation (Beatles, Zombies, Beach Boys) were stirring the interest of new generations of musicians, ready to create new, unprecedented forms of art.

It's precisely in these years that, before King Crimson, some artists attempted the ambitious path of a crossover between rock and classical music. Very young artists, whether or not they came from music schools and conservatories, drew a connecting thread between their studies and the sound flooding European and American radio. Among them, the Nice of Keith Emerson and Procol Harum of Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher and Keith Reid have been regarded as the absolute pioneers of what has gone down in history as proto-progressive, that is, the set of progressive tendencies, still in an embryonic stage, recorded before the big bang commonly associated with “In The Court Of Crimson King”. While the Nice were marked by the overflowing personality of Emerson, Procol Harum codified the baroque symphonic element applied to the classic pop song format. In this sense their first single, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale”, inspired by Bach's music, is the best-known example, and as such the most fitting one.

The track came out as a 7-inch single on 12 May 1967 and debuted on the British chart on the 25th of the month, at number twenty-one. The following week it was at number four – behind the Tremeloes, Kinks and The Mamas & The Papas; the week after that it leapt to number one. It stayed there for six weeks, before giving way to “All You Need Is Love”.

The collective imagination has turned the song into an icon from the very first moments of its intro. The Hammond organ opening echoes the progression of the aria from Johann Sebastian Bach's third Orchestral Suite (BWV 1068, also famous in the rearrangement known as “Air on the G String”) and is among the most recognisable moments in the history of pop. Few instrumental passages manage, like those few seconds, to instantly conjure an atmosphere that is also an emotion and also an era: a single note sounds, and the tone is already inexplicably radiant and melancholic, larger than life, “final” in the way even the most aching ballads usually manage to be only in the heart of the bridge. Much of the credit goes – besides Bach, of course! – to the crystalline timbre of keyboardist Matthew Fisher's organ, whose exact mix has long been a mystery for fans. Less conspicuous, but crucial to the result, is also the well-judged drum part, light and jazzy, yet able to complete with its crisp accents the descending steps of the gorgeous bassline. C – tom – B – tom – A – tom – G… Right foot, left foot: just as in the video the band, the music comes towards us in slow motion, yet unstoppable and ever more grandiose.

The voice enters. Keith Reid's lyrics (an official member of the band precisely in his role as lyricist) are, alongside the Hammond, the other protagonist that made the song unforgettable. “We skipped the light fandango…”: “we” who? What fandango, in what situation? What on earth is being talked about? From the very first verse, the meaning is a mystery, one that conceals the whole context and leaves the listener only flashes and clues. Two lovers? A reception's dance floor? The further one goes, the more the hypotheses dissolve: “Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor/ I was feeling kinda seasick/ The crowd called out for more” (“acrobatic turns across the floor, a touch of seasickness, the crowd called out for more”). Nautical hints mix with bursts of celebration, and as the verse unfolds the mood grows ever more dreamlike, with rooms humming and ceilings flying away: settings and events merge, blur together, leaving behind that sense of intoxicating bewilderment shared by both dreams and the most elusive riddles.

The chorus: “And so it was that later/ As the miller told his tale/ That her face at first just ghostly/ Turned a whiter shade of pale”. Inscrutable, but there's no need to understand it: as with that other riddle that will be “Hotel California”, it's enough to let yourself be carried away by the images, by the evocations of the words. The late hour, perhaps past the midnight that tends to turn carriages back into pumpkins; the tale of a miller that perhaps recalls Chaucer and perhaps is just one more contradictory setting; the explicit oxymoron of the face, already ghostly, that turns (always, mind you, without any clear reason!) into that “even whiter shade of pale” immortalised in the title.

The intro returns with an instrumental bridge; then more fragments and apparitions. The sea and the shore, ancient mythologies of gods, mermaids and vestal virgins, playing cards, an hourglass – or rather, the hourglass: because nothing can imply whole worlds quite like a definite article attached to something never mentioned before. With every chorus, the Hammond swells like a wave with the vibration of the Leslie speaker and settles right on the title: almost an echo of the constant maritime hints scattered throughout the lyrics.

The end arrives, in fade out, like the undertow or the tide pulling back.

For its purity, its mystery, its aura dripping with nostalgia, “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” is a song that has always brought people to tears. Now, in the wake of the death of its most prominent author, it manages to do so for one more reason. And whoever, musician or simple fan, owes to the magic of that organ and that indecipherable lyric the discovery of an entire universe, ultimately has just one word to express their grief: thank you.

We skipped the light fandango

turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor

I was feeling kinda seasick

but the crowd called out for more

The room was humming harder

as the ceiling flew away

When we called out for another drink

the waiter brought a tray

And so it was that later

as the miller told his tale

that her face, at first just ghostly,

turned a whiter shade of pale

She said, ‘There is no reason

and the truth is plain to see.’

But I wandered through my playing cards

and would not let her be

one of sixteen vestal virgins

who were leaving for the coast

and although my eyes were open

they might have just as well’ve been closed

She said, ‘I’m home on shore leave,’

though in truth we were at sea

so I took her by the looking glass

and forced her to agree

saying, ‘You must be the mermaid

who took Neptune for a ride.’

But she smiled at me so sadly

that my anger straightway died

If music be the food of love

then laughter is its queen

and likewise if behind is in front

then dirt in truth is clean

My mouth by then like cardboard

seemed to slip straight through my head

So we crash-dived straightway quickly

and attacked the ocean bed

Ride the wave of great music

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15/04/2026