Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)

Album: Shine On Brightly 1968 

Picture sleeve: 

Taking Notes and Stealing Quotes on this song

Cover-version: yes

Words by
Keith Reid

'Magdalene' ... could this unexpected word have been suggested by 'Mellotron', the instrument that Gary Brooker plays towards the end of this piece?

Though I know the night has fallen and the sun's sailed out to sea
I will wait here for the band to play the trumpet voluntary
And with one foot on the seashore and the other in the sand
I will stand here plaiting daisies whilst you play the piano-grand

Caprice, your bugle blew away the cobwebs from my ears
and for once I stood quite naked. Unashamed, I wept the tears
which I tried to hide inside myself from me, I mean from you
but the shame I found too painful and the pain it only grew

Magdalene, my Regal Zonophone

BtP to Ian Barton
Are you aware that Procol Harum had (and still play!) a song entitled 'Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)', in which those words are rather strangely uttered in the playout?

Ian Barton to BtP
I wasn't aware of that lyric in that song. I expect that me along with the rest of the world still has Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale running around in our heads even after all these years. It is one of those songs that as soon as you hear the first few chords the volume is raised by double and silence is demanded until it is complete. While my website has a connection with Regal Zonophone it is specifically based on a special blue-labelled series of 78rpm records released by them of Salvation Army music and musicians between 1927 & 1957.

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