With the reader’s indulgence, I’d like to nominate “the whitest shade of pale”* as a new meme meaning “beyond all comprehension,” which to many sums up the lyrics to the psychedelic songs of the 60s music scene, including “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

“A Whiter Shade of Pale” was not a #1 single in the U.S. It peaked at #5. It was a #1 hit in Britain.

No matter. It’s a great song. It’s a classic song. It’s a song with a provocative title by a band with an interesting name, Procol Harum.

According to Wikipedia, “The band name was chosen by its manager, Guy Stevens, after the name of a friend’s cat, and it is almost the Latin for ‘beyond these things.’ A more correct spelling of the Latin phrase is in fact Procul Harum…However, even Procul Harum is not quite right grammatically, and the correct Latin translation of ‘beyond these things’ would be Procul His.”

Guy Stevens was an enigmatic Londoner (who died in 1980) whose name is mentioned variously in association with many top British artists, including Mott the Hoople and The Clash. The only definitive thing that most articles published about him have in common is his reported drug abuse and time spent in prison.

Perhaps the drugs were his biggest link to the music scene, which wouldn’t be a first, especially in that era of the late 1960s. A Guy Stevens biography would surely make for an interesting read.

An article on ProcolHarum.com states that “it was Guy who said to Keith Reid ‘you look like a whiter shade of pale’ or some variant thereof that was to become the title of the song.”

Sounds like drugs were involved to me.

Regardless, cryptic lyrics and a quasi-classical organ part, man that was the 60s!

Rolling Stone Magazine, in naming “Whiter Shade of Pale” #57 to their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, calls the song, “A somber hymn supported by an organ theme straight out of Bach (‘Air on the G String,’ from the ‘Suite No. 3 in D Major’), Procol Harum’s ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’ was unlike anything on the radio in 1967. It was also the only track recorded by the initial lineup of Procol Harum, which started as an R&B; band, the Paramounts, in 1963. A worldwide smash that sold more than 6 million copies and quickly found its way into wedding ceremonies (and, later, the The Big Chill soundtrack), ‘Pale’ helped kick-start the classical-rock boomlet that gave the world the Moody Blues.”

The classic and trademark organ arrangement for the song (played by keyboardist for the band Matthew Fisher), according to many sources was derived from “Sleepers, Awake,” one of the movements in Bach’s “Suite No. 3 in D Major,” and it’s adaptation, “The Air on the G String.”

SIDEBAR: The Sleeper Awakes is a novel by H. G. Wells about a man who sleeps for two hundred and three years, waking up in a completely transformed London, where, because of compound interest on his bank accounts, he has become the richest man in the world.

“Air” is the French term for “Aria.”

“The title ‘Air on the G String’…comes from violinist August Wilhelmj’s late 19th century arrangement of the piece. By transposing the key of the piece from its original D major to C major, Wilhelmj was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string…The Air on the G String is an adaptation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous Air [“Suite No. 3 in D Major”]. The air is usually played slowly and freely, and features an intertwining harmony and melody.” —Wikipedia

“Slowly and freely…,” that sounds like it could be the work of drugs too…hmmm.

SIDEBAR: There’s an old joke about the Beatles actually wanting to add Bach to the band (probably a studio gag initiated by their classically-trained producer, George Martin — just guessing):

“Didn’t the Beatles want him?  I thought I remember Paul saying “Get Bach.” (One of the many “Bach jokes” among musicians, including, “I’ll be Bach…you be Beethoven.”)

Here are the famous words to “A Whiter Shade”:

A Whiter Shade Of Pale Lyrics
(Words and Music by Keith Reid and Gary Booker)  

We skipped the light fandango
And turned cartwheels across the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
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

She said there is no reason
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
Would not let her be
One of sixteen vestal virgins
Who were leaving for the coast
At the moment my eyes were open
They might just as well have 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

SIDEBAR: The memorable first line of “Whiter Shade of Pale,” “we skipped the light fandango,” is a clever and artsy (and we assume intentional) turn of the phrase “trip the light fantastic” which of course means “to dance.” “Trip the light fantastic” has its own interesting story which can be found here.

Now organist Matthew Fisher is suing the band for royalties, claiming that he co-authored the song. In a recent CNN story, Fisher’s attorney was reported as saying, “‘Mr. Fisher seeks a declaration that he is entitled to a share, we say an equal share, in the musical copyright for the song as originally recorded…'”

At stake is back-royalties for some 10 million copies of the song sold world-wide.

The band says that’s ridiculous. Co-writer Randy Booker was quoted as saying, “I am shocked and dismayed that after Matthew had worked with us quite happily over the course of 40 years without him once alleging that his role on ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ was anything other than as a musician, it is only now that he claims he recalls writing part of the song.”

Perhaps Booker should have invoked our meme: i.e. “Matthew’s assertion clearly reflects the ‘whitest shade of pale.’ It is simply beyond all comprehension.”

Or maybe Fisher could make better use of it: i.e. “Man, those last 40 years, they were ‘the whitest shade of pale’ for me.”

*”The term ‘meme’ [rhymes with “theme”], coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins [in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene], refers to a unit of cultural information that can be transmitted from one mind to another…Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” —Answers.com

(This is a gross over-simplification of Dawkins’ concept of memes. We are using the term here to refer to the viral nature of common expressions. Advertisers, the best of them, use the concept well. An example is the viral spread of Budweiser’s “wasssssup?”)