10. A Whiter Shade of Pale, Procol Harum

1967 brought us psychedelia and an era of self-importance based on discovering and distributing inner truth to society, aided by drugs, pop literature and the trance-creating music of groups like Procol Harum. For self-importance, why not a majestic name from Latin meaning, significantly, “beyond these things.” And a Zen-like title that sounds profound but has no meaning, does it? The lyrics vaguely recall T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland: “the room was humming harder, as the waiter brought his tray.” And most classical of all are the “sixteen vestal virgins, heading for the coast.” Huh? Man, you don’t have to understand it, you just feel it. And feel it we did, in our bones, in our minds, in our soul, as the organ resonated with a church-like dirge and Gary Brooker’s plaintive vocal never rose above a mourn. It was oh, so serious, and we were oh, so important. I was on a “beach” in Dubrovnik in the summer of ’67 when I heard this hymn booming from the transistors of European teens and just knew we were all part of a new world. Weren’t we?

Sidebar: Classical Rock

As opposed to “classic rock,” which just means old stuff, usually from the ‘70s and ‘80s, I’m calling this “classical rock” to denote the half-decade or so when rock artists took their cue from classical music. The Moody Blues recorded Days of Future Passed (another Zen title) with the London Festival Orchestra. Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick had distinct movements, but the whole record (both sides) was just one song, like a classical piece. The greatest album of this epoch, without argument, was Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, a lushly orchestrated whole that demanded the same concentration, and same attention span,  as a Brahms symphony. And Procol Harum, of course, wasn’t even subtle in its allusion: the melody of A Whiter Shade of Pale was lifted directly from a Bach cantata. For those of us who never got into classical music but were surrounded by society’s assumption that that was a higher (much higher) art form, rock’s classical era allowed us to feel that gap was closing. But all great art is a reaction against what’s then in vogue, and the swelling self-importance of this music soon gave way to the Ramones.