Story of the Song: A Whiter Shade of
Pale, Procol Harum
Robert Webb in The Independent •
17 April 2009
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Rarely has a song proven so troublesome. A Whiter Shade of Pale,
surprisingly declared by the BBC [sic] to be the most played song in public
places in the past 75 years, has also famously been the subject of a
bitter feud between founding members of Procol Harum.
The problems
began in 1973 and a mention of the song in Melody Maker. The
paper referred to "Gary Brooker's Bach
licks". Brooker was credited as a co-writer, along with the lyricist
Keith Reid. Matthew Fisher, then a recently departed keyboardist from
the band, took issue with the comment, launching into a correspondence
with the paper during which he claimed it was he, and not Brooker, who
was responsible for the baroque hook: "The organ part, including the
solo and the infamous 'Bach licks', was entirely my doing," he wrote.
It took Fisher 37 years to do something about it. In 2000,
songwriting royalties were frozen amid claims from Fisher for a backlog
of payments due. The case came to a head in 2006 when Fisher appeared
at the Royal Courts of Justice,
sat at an organ, playing his solo bar by bar to explain the "process of
his composition". His performance won him 40 per cent of the copyright
to the song, although his claim for up to £1m of back royalties was
rejected. Two years later, on the basis that there was an "excessive
delay" in the claim being made, the ruling was overturned and though
Fisher was not granted back royalties it was accepted that he was a 40%
co-writer of the recorded song.
But, rather than who wrote it, what most have wanted to know is,
what's it all about? An early explanation from Reid was that he was at a
"gathering" where "some guy looked at a
chick and said to her, 'you've gone a whiter shade of pale'. That
phrase stuck in my mind." Reid sent his surreal song, drawing on various
classical and literary sources, to Brooker. "I remember the day it
arrived: four very long
stanzas," said Brooker. Within a couple of hours, the melody was
written. Originally longer than the final recording –
the "lost" lyrics only ever featured in live
renditions – the song intrigued listeners from the off. "I suppose
everyone will have forgotten about it in two weeks," posited one
interviewer, interrogating Brooker on the meaning, as the record hit No
1 in 1967. "Sure, man," replied Brooker. And did it worry him? "No."