Whats A Whiter Shade of Pale?
Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale first hit the airwaves 41 years ago, and was just named the UK’s song most played in public places by BBC radio. Why a Whiter Shade of Pale? Why not a Darker Shade of Tan? Lyricist Keith Reid was kind enough to check in from London and let me ask him about the history of the song. Karen Dalton-Beninato How is it that the most unique lyrics end up the most universal, as inscrutable as they are? Keith Reid It’s an interesting question. It struck me as a very useful phrase, a whiter shade of pale. I mean people now use it all the time. I was just reading an article in the New York Times and they were talking about a drink called absinthe and they called the absinthe a lighter shade of green. It went into the Oxford Book of Quotations as a phrase, so it reverberates. I think the reason is really because it’s kind of something which is impressionistic, so people never really get to the bottom of it. So it has some kind of mystery to it like a painting,
