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[av_heading heading=’ JUST ANOTHER DAY ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’
“We skipped the light fandango
Turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
But the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale”…
– Gary Brooker, Keith Reid and Matthew Fisher
IF YOU think this is about those brown skinned natives who wannabe mestizas smothering themselves 24/7 with those whitening soaps advertised to “bring out the mestiza in you”, it’s not.
Of course, any sensible person knows that being a mestiza or mestizo has to do with your genes, more specifically the genes you inherit from your parents where one happens to be Caucasian and the other a native.
So no amount of skin whitening soap will bring out the mestiza in you as you’re not. The result, of course, from smothering yourself with these whitening soaps is a pug nosed native with a face that’s a “whiter shade of pale” while the rest of the body is still “café latte.”
But so much for that; we’ll talk about these wannabe mestizas in some other column. I really want to talk about a song that came out in the late 1960s that was avant garde for that time. It was completely different from the pop songs of that era and to this day it still endured with its haunting melodies.
From that free online encyclopedia:
“‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ is the debut song by the British rock band Procol Harum, released 12 May 1967.
“With its haunting Bach-derived instrumental melody, soulful vocals, and unusual lyrics – by the song’s co-authors Gary Brokker, Keith Reid and Matthew Fisher.
“The song was performed and recorded at Olympic Sound Studios in London, England, with Brooker providing the vocals and piano, Fisher on a Hammond M-102 organ, David Knights on bass and Ray Royer on guitar. Drums were by session drummer Bill Eyden.
“Reid got the title and starting point for the song at a party. He overheard someone at the party saying to a woman, ‘You’ve turned a whiter shade of pale’, and the phrase stuck in his mind.”
In an interview:
“The author of Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale, Claes Johansen, suggests that the song ‘deals in metaphorical form with a male/female relationship which after some negotiation ends in a sexual act” This is supported by Tim de Lisle in Lives of the Great Songs, who remarks that the lyrics concern a drunken seduction, which is described through references to sex as a form of travel, usually nautical, using mythical and literary journeys. Other observers have also commented that the lyrics concern a sexual relationship.’
“In a 2008 interview with Uncut Magazine, Keith Reid the song’s lyricist however said: ‘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.’
“In the same Uncut interview, Keith Reid recalled the writing of the lyrics: ‘I used to go and see a lot of French films in the Academy in Oxford Street (London). Pierrot Le Fou made a strong impression on me, and Last Year In Marienbad. I was also very taken with surrealism, Magritte and Dali. You can draw a line between the narrative fractures and mood of those French films and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale.’”
Here are the rest of the lyrics of the song perhaps you may appreciate the mood of the “Summer of Love”:
She said, ‘There is no reason
And the truth is plain to see.’
But I wandered through my playing cards
And would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
And although my eyes were open
They might have just as well’ve been closed
And so it was that later
As the miller told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly,
Turned a whiter shade of pale”
Check out the song on YouTube who knows you might like it but if you fancy yourself a millennial I simply doubt it as your taste or the lack of it cannot measure up.
And what has this song got to do with wannabe mestizas? Nothing really. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
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