Dear Santa

Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

Dear Santa ...

Palers' wishes for Christmas 1999 and the next millennium

Beverley Peyton left a message in the Procol Harum maillist, outlining her Procol Harum-related wishes for Christmas and the year 2000. BtP would like all Palers to contribute their Procol Harum wishes for Christmas and the next year. We will make sure Santa Claus get the list. Who knows, if we have all been nice people, maybe Santa will bring us the gifts we long for? Send your wish-list for Santa here, and we'll include it on this page.

I just thought I'd take the time to say how grateful I am for all the great music you have brought into my life over the years. One thing for sure is, I know you know how much I love Procol Harum and I really don't know if it was your doing all those years ago when I found myself wishing to meet them and some magical spirit much like yourself guided us together.

I really didn't want to bother you this year 'cos I know how busy you'll be giving out all those Procol Harum CDs to my fellow Palers and I should hope you won't forget to include their friends and family members, but there is just one teensy request I have. You see, I missed going to Redhill and even though I've been able to hear Procol Harum in concert in the 90s, it would really great to hear them in the Millennium. You know, kind of start a new century with them LIVE? Of course you're most welcome to join us if the BAND would be so kind as to play on some GRAND STAGE again.

So Santa, when you're done passing out all the goodies this Christmas would you mind knocking on their doors for a little holiday cheer and having a talk with them? I bet YOU can make that happen. Thanks Santa. We'll be SHINING here waiting for an answer.

Oh, and Santa? One wee small other favor if I may? These new Paler friends of mine? Well, they've become real special to me since I've come online. Could ya see to it that their Xmas and New Years is safe, happy and touched with love. That's all Santa. I won't ask for another thing.........till next year. ;-)

Mr. Santa, I really don't want anything - not for myself, that is. You see, it's....*sniff!* - it's my daddy. He says that there's one thing that he wants before....before the operation. He wants to see Procol Harum play live again. And Santa, if ... well, if we get our house back and all, maybe you could leave a concert ticket or two under the tree. The nice people at the church said that they'd get us a tree 'cause they know mom works hard and can't get around too well. Oh, mom would like to see Procol Harum, too. I've heard that they're great people and a great band, and mom & dad really would like for me to see them play before ... well, you know. I don't want to make you sad, Santa, so I'll stop now. I want you to look happy for all of the other little boys and girls who want expensive, meaningless, commercial goodies. Not like my poor mom & dad who just ... just want to share the gift of music with me ... before they - before they ... *sorry!*

1) A new Procol Harum tour. New York area concerts required.
2) Re-mastered re-issues of all post-Home Procol albums
3) A batch of new songs.
4) A band tour to break them in.
5) A studio album of the new material by the band (no session players called in)
6) A studio version of Within Our House
7) A live recording from the 2000 tour
8) Brooker, Fisher, Reid in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
9) Another concert in my backyard

I read on Beyond the Pale, that it's too bad that we didn't get to hear Simple Sister played with The Edmonton Orchestra as it would have laid to rest the critics, who at the time, said that Procol Harum couldn't rock. What I'd like to see is an expanded (2CD set) of Procol Harum live in Edmonton.

I know it's hard to visit my country in December with all those Winter clothes you wear, and be called Pap Noel in a funny mix of French and Spanish. But you've never failed me, and there's a pair of special favours I want to ask you this year. Did you ever hear about Procol Harum? (Yes, Santa, they played that tune, but it's not Bach). Well, I won't ask you to give them a huge hit again - that would be nice, but your business is gifts, not miracles. Miracles happen, but some very special things are no for everyone, like shooting stars, unicorns and a delicious dessert my grandmother used to make when I was a kidder Give them the gift of hearing their own songs as fans do, always like the first time, that joy and that thrill. If you give them this precious gift, I know they'll feel like playing together again, some small details will be easy to fix, and we'll all get the gifts we want. Then, I want you to give them a drummer, a very bright musician who plays drums, with a huge rhythm computer in his brain and a soul much bigger than his brain. It won't be enough to play like BJ, but could be something to begin with

You're the only one I can send this list to because whenever I'm asked what I want for Christmas or my birthday by relatives or friends, I never know what to answer because they always warn me 'NO PH stuff !!'. And if I ever mention the name PH, they look at me with pity (or worry) much as you would look at a junkie begging some drug or alcohol.

Well, my Mum is somewhat nicer, she just wonders (a bit loudly) though 'when will she grow up?'. I know, Santa you are different and anyway I don't really care what people think; I look at them up from all my height (153 huge centimeters) with as much scorn as I can manage, keep on smiling, and graciously let them choose what they'll give me. Well, it's not the same with YOU Santa. I know we can ask you anything, you are something of a magician. So, here's my list with only 2 items:

- a concert for 2000 (and I'll pray whichever God will listen to me that it will be at a time of the year when I can come). For the content of the concert, I even have suggestions : a long session 'du genre' Last Train to Niagara, also plenty of old songs, maybe with unusual arrangements (a little more RnB or with just the piano ??), and of course a few new songs like Heartbreaker.

- a new album. To make it simple, why not a recording of the above concert ? That would be Something Magic.

So dearest Santa - you know you are my favourite Santa - don't forget my list. And if you have other lists of the same kind (I think you do), I'm even ready to share it with other people of such a good taste.

1. A new Procol Harum album- recorded live in the studio with Gary on a real piano, Robin or Dave on guitar, Matt on a Hammond, Chris on a Fender and a really good drummer on real drums playing songs only by Keith and Gary.

All those 'forgotten tracks' (we dont forget) released on a CD 'Lost At Sea..Presumed Drowned'

A new Procol Harum album with accompanying tour. Cambridge Corn Exchange is very nice.It's convenient for me anyway..it's my list after all!!!! With Keith Reid doing With Held Twas In I

Christmas wishes:

1) I would *love* a Procol reunion and US tour; I'd also like Peace, Love and Happiness, Freedom, Justice, Health, Prosperity and Open Source Software for everyone.

2) With or without the above, I'd love heartfelt new recordings from all former Procolers in the new year, all with as much committment as Within Our House. Matthew Fisher, please come home! Keith: Allen Ginsberg and Robert Hunter could do it, so can you!

3) The Procol Harum Live Box Set.

Merry Christmas Y'all!

Ross Taylor

Oh, how I have been a good boy......such a very good boy. So good, in fact, that my friends have abandoned me to my mundane and boring existence. They say that I am no longer any fun. And they are right. So I wish to put things right again. And this is where you can help me, Santa. I think that I am deserving if you will only grant me my small Christmas wish. Yes, just one wish. Santa, I wish to be KING! King of the World. Solitary potentate of the planet. Sovereign ruler of the roost. The High Falootin, full monte Royal Punjab of Javapor.

As King, I will vanquish evildoers everywhere. I will banish all spoilers of peace and all purveyors of injustice. Even though the words I use are pretentious and make you cringe with embarrassment. But such is the language of Royal Decrees, of which I promise to make several. I will anoint Keith Reid as Poet Laureate and Gary Brooker as Court Composer. I will cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war, to hunt down and return Matthew Fisher's stolen Hammond organ.

I will appoint Procol Harum as house band and melody-makers of the millennium and donate a King's ransom for their royalties. I will convert the Grand Hotel into their private recording studio and dedicate all music production facilities to the manufacture of Procol recordings and disperse them throughout the kingdom. ( Relax Santa. I will be using the Post Office.)

And finally, I will seize all satellites for the worldwide broadcast of Procol Harum's Concert for the Millennium, which will air on New Year's Eve. (Start brushing up your chops, boys!) Yes, I will put everything right within a fortnight. Trust me on this.

Dear Santa,

Health & happiness for Gary & all the Band members, with real recognition of their unique contribution to music of the past 30+ years. Do we keep the secret all to ourselves or hope to see them lifted to a higher level of acceptance?

Plan A - for the World
1. A live concert with a major orchestra on national TV - Barbican revisited
2. An artistic interpretation on the South Bank Show, Omnibus or suchlike. I have writeen 3 times to Melvyn Bragg
3. A populist This is Your Life with all Gary's chums joining in AWSOP at the end . . you know Paulie, Eric, Bill Wyman and others. I have written to Thames as well.
4. Recognition of the wonderful potential of the visual imagary containd in their lyrics - a film coordinated by Alan Parker - maybe 5 minute most superior pop videos by many directors, even students of the genre.
5. An illustrated collection of Keith Reid lyrics, published at a normal commercial price, receiving proper & positive critical review bythe press haevyweights.
6. A Barry Wilson commemorative record - the No1 rock drummer - maybe with Kaleidoscope, ASD, Power Failure & With a Little Help from my Friends
7. The aforementioned Kaleidoscope & Repent Walpurgis, as majestically remixed in stereo on Pandoras Box, at No 1
8. A video tape realeased by the BBC of Sight & Sound 1977, or the Edmonton Reunion (which is in Canadian hands)

Plan B - Just for Us
1. All unreleased songs & rarities gathered together.
2. A new album - maybe a concept for the new era, building on Flood & Niagara.
3. A further Redhill evening in the Royal Albert Hall.
4. Procol on the Proms?
5. Gary to see his 90th Birthday. Fisher folk live forever - just look at the Queen Mum.

Is that enough, Jens? From Scotland - we wish you a riotous Hogmanay & a peaceful New Year.

Charlie Allison (who saw the Paramounts play in 1965 in Scotland with Sandie Shaw, but didn't know it at the time!)

You probably don't know me, as I hardly ever send you any wishes for Christmas. Quite frankly, I have most of the things I want, and what I want and do not have is usually too expensive to buy. But this year is diferent. As we are approaching a new millenium, I think we should all make our wish list not only for this Christmas, but for the first year in the new millenium.

You know this wonderful band, Procol Harum. They had a world wide hit back in 1967. An yes, they even recorded a Christmas song - it was called A Christmas Camel (g). And now I have a some wishes for this band, their music and us, the fans, for the next year.

First. You may have heard about that glorious anniversary party for AWSoP in Redhill in 1997. I do hope something like this could happen again. Fans from all over the world assembling to listen to the music and socialise. Yes, I realize that we cannot celebrate that 30 year anniversary again, but I am shure we could find something. Like BtP's 3 year birthday, or something else. The main thing is to once again be part of such an unique event.

And Santa, yes I do wish Procol Harum could get together for a few more concerts next year. Maybe a whole tour? How wonderful it would be if somebody could persuade them to come to my city, Kristiansand - Norway, for a concert. I think this city would be an even better place to live if more people here got to hear their music live.

Santa. Today I visited some record stores, to buy christmas gifts for somebody. They all have a special section labeled Procol Harum. To discover this made me happy. But they all had too few CDs dispalayed in the Procol Harum slots. Santa, they need more CDs to sell. You now me, the most treasuerd gift would be a new CD. Possible a new studio album. But if that cannot happen, if one of my concert wishes comes true, maybe your little santa children could make a recording of one of the concerts and release this on CD? And Santa, I know Gary Brooker has a hughe library of live recordings. Maybe you can get some of that into CD to fill the vacant slots in the record stores. And please, Santa. Could you solve the problems and see that Live and Broken Barricades gets a new release on CD. I don't have BB on CD myselves. And I am tired of answerieng e-mails from people asking where they can be obtained. (g)

Finally Santa I wish for a blessed Christmas and a wonderful new year for all the Procol Harum musicians and their families, and for all the Procol Harum fans all over the world and their beloved.

Dear Santa, to you and to my friends over the world StrawMERRY Xmas For EVE (2000)!
Hope to hear you soon in my heart, in my singin voice and in the honest souls of a reborn mankind.

I imagine you'll be puzzled to hear from me, since I guess you remember the winter of 1960 (when my brother was ill and I had to sleep in the spare room with its tiny narrow fireplace and chimney) when by a heroic feat of cerebration I finally figured out that you couldn't possibly exist.

Sorry I haven't been in touch since then. Somehow I've always been lucky enough to be pretty satisfied with what I've got; anyhow, living in a city where the hungry and the homeless seem to huddle in every doorway, buffeted by the insane hurly-burly of seasonal consumerism, I just think it would be obscene for any of us internetting types to wish for anything over and above the basic needs of food, shelter, and company ... for everyone in the world. (I'm with King Lear on this: 'Distribution should UNDO excess
And each man have enough')

So why write tonight, almost forty years on? It's the Millennial Thing, I suppose. Not that I much care for the way we're all looking fervently back over the past, as if everything were about to be changed tomorrow: somehow I believe that humanity will go on behaving much as it always has. But what's been bothering me is the way that 2000-Mankind will come to perceive any scrap of our culture that carries a date starting with 19**, or 18**, or even 15** ... isn't it all going to seem very stale and distant?

I know that any date before our births seems inconceivably remote: 1915, when my father was born, is a date that simply doesn't make sense to me, just as 1953 means nothing to my son. 'Twas ever thus, I'm sure. But this time-differential is going to be hugely exaggerated by the big change of date. Whether we were alive then or not, May 1967 is really going to belong to an archaic-sounding era; 1977 likewise, 1991, 1996, 19 July 1997 ... all will suddenly become dates-from-way-back. And some things that I think are worth preserving are going to find it easier to get forgotten.

Shakespeare will survive: he'll be in constant performance as ever. Beckett, Blake, Duchamp ... they'll all have champions to keep them seeming contemporary. But if I were to be permitted a wish, it would be to let Procol Harum play again in a date starting with 20** ... just to get a foothold in the new Millennium, to stave off oblivion.

They've had a good run of re-releases, book-chapters, web-pages ... but all in the stale old 19**s: if the people who have kept that flame alive could be granted continued energy in the new century, with the hope of kindling in the Procol players some renewed realization of their own greatness, and a will to wield their powers once more on stage and in the studio ... I'd be happy. We all would.

So that's me done ... no different from anyone else's wishes here: just more long-winded!

1) A re-issue program from Chrysalis for the rest of the PH catalog that does what Westside did for the Regal Zonophone LPs. Of course, this would have to include the Adagio di Albinoni / Blue Danube single and the live-with-orchestra version of Luskus Delph, the final two notes of which always stir my soul.

2) An album of new material performed by Brooker, Fisher, Trower, Copping and a compatible drummer.

Dear Santa,
back again home,eh?
And..... may I ask if you met, in some place, "reborn mankind"?.... (Let me say that I'm uncertain of such occurrence.)
However, "rebuilding mankind" sounds to me now as the correct expression.
Perhaps in the next century Procol and the Palers could offer a wee small help to solve the problem: and this will be for nothing, not for sixpence.
So, 'f Wiedersehen, Santa: ti aspettero' ancora, sveglio, come quando ero bambino.
acb