Today’s classic song of the day is “A White Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum. Released in May of 1967, this classical-sounding track peaked at #5 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100, but topped the charts in Australia, Belgium Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, West Germany, and the UK, making it a true worldwide hit.
The reason “A White Shade of Pale” sounds classical is because its prominent organ line is derived from the second movement of J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major, otherwise known as “Air on a G String.” Gary Brooker, who co-wrote the tune with Keith Reid and Matthew Fisher (who played that organ part on the record), says the resemblance was not intentional:
“If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach’s ‘Air on a G String’ before it veers off. That spark was all it took. I wasn’t consciously combining rock with classical, it’s just that Bach’s music was in me.”
Intentional or not, “A White Shade of Pale” is very Bach-sounding and it’s difficult to imagine the song without that organ part. It’s also a song with somewhat indecipherable lyrics, going on about skipping the light fandango, turning cartwheels across the floor, and sixteen vestal virgins who were leaving for the coast. I really have no idea what this song is about; lyricist Keith Reid himself wasn’t completely clear about that:
“I was trying to conjure a mood as much as tell a straightforward, girl-leaves-boy story. With the ceiling flying away and room humming harder, I wanted to paint an image of a scene. I wasn’t trying to be mysterious with those images, I was trying to be evocative. I suppose it seems like a decadent scene I’m describing. But I was too young to have experienced any decadence, then. I might have been smoking when I conceived it, but not when I wrote. It was influenced by books, not drugs.”
Yeah, he may have been smoking something when he wrote it. Quite possibly.
In any case, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” has become a true classic and Procol Harum’s greatest hit. (Their other big single was “Conquistador,” which reached #16 in 1972.) “A White Shade of Pale” was inducted into both the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was named the most-played record by British broadcasting of the past 70 years. It’s also been featured in a number of movies and television shows, including prominent placement in the 1983 film, The Big Chill. It’s one that everybody recognizes within its first few Bach-like notes.
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