Novum lyricist Pete Brown

Interviewed at the excellent SongFacts • read the rest online here

[Pete Brown's] latest contribution is to another rather noteworthy British group, Procol Harum, whose 2017 album Novum has lyrics by Brown. The lead single is Sunday Morning, which finds him 'exploring all the different shades of living.'

Carl Wiser (SongFacts)
Did you write the song Sunday Morning on Novum?

Pete Brown
Yes.

That’s a terrific song. Can you tell me about writing that song and what the lyrics convey?

It was inspired by an old Joe Turner song [Sunday Morning Blues], Big Joe Turner that is, where he’s got this line:

I’m in blue every Saturday
But each Sunday morning I feel all right
I go to church and make peace with my maker
And then go home and make love to my wife

It’s got a bit of a spirit there. It’s slightly gospelly the way that Gary [Brooker] phrased it. It’s about a working-class person who does what he does and works hard and plays hard.

And then, the next two songs also touch on God. Was there a theme you were developing there?

Well, I had met Gary a couple of times but I didn’t know him at all. I actually happened to have been present at one of the first-ever gigs of Procol Harum, at the UFO club in London in ‘67. And I always liked his work and I liked Keith Reid’s work. Keith and Gary had split up, and when they were thinking about a new record, they thought about me doing it. So, they put us together and Gary and I had a very brief meeting. I said, ‘Got any ideas for a theme?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, Ten Commandments.’ I said, ‘OK.’

We drifted way away from that, but there are elements in there that were inspired by the idea. So it’s not about God really, it’s more about a rock and roll manager who I happened to have had the misfortune of being managed by. But we took off from some original ideas that were in that direction and then we went somewhere else.

Procol Harum’s mainstay is Gary Brooker, who formed the band in 1967, the year their majestic debut single, A Whiter Shade of Pale, was released.
Novum (Latin for ‘new’) is the group’s fourteenth album, their first since 2003. The cover was illustrated by Julia Brown [no relation] using the band’s début from fifty years earlier as a guidepost.

That makes a lot more sense now. So, Last Chance Motel would be the ‘do not covet thy neighbour’s wife’ commandment?

Actually it’s more adultery, but yes, it’s that kind of thing. The Neighbour one is coveting, but we tried to make them universal.

I’m not sure about Gary, but I’m absolutely not religious at all. I grew up Jewish but not having any particular regard for religion or gods or anything. So, I’m on the other side of the coin.

I’m guessing that Image of the Beast is the song that’s about the manager that did you wrong.

The Image of the Beast, it’s a funny thing. The Image of the Beast is about greed, but there’s a terrific book by the American science fiction writer, Philip José Farmer. It’s like a kind of science fiction, pornographic, great Raymond Chandler kind of a book about LA. It’s very, very fantastical and very bizarre and it’s called Image of the Beast. I got some ideas out of that really. I’m a big science fiction fan, especially from ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s stuff.

Did you write Neighbour?

Yes.

That’s a fun little song.

Oh, yes. I always try to bring a lot of humour to these things, where it’s appropriate. And funnily enough I Told on You, originally I sketched out a lot of these things quite a long time ago and then time passed by and then we eventually got down to it but, I Told On You seems now to be about Brexit and some of the stuff that’s happened because of that, but that was completely unintentional at the time. One of my prophetic songs, you know.

See also here

Procol Harum albums