Procol Harum – A Whiter Shade Of Pale lyrics

This topic is frustrating because it seems to be misinformed on constantly. The "miller telling his tale" is not a reference to moths this powdery/white this cocaine. Its a reference to caucers Canterbury talen which are ask perverse stories of list and taudry affairs. This one particularly is titled "the millers tale" so duhhhh.

Doesn't matter what the lyrics mean.. Only thing that matters is that Gary Brooker brought everyone to their senses. brought their soul to their knees and no matter how many years pass or how many times it's heard, it is more hauntingly beautiful than the last. Procol Harlem is the best drug ever.

It can only be about commotion, he and this girl are having a fight in some tavern getting drunk or whatever and this guy Miller starts to tell of story of young love and about the tragedy of it. After she listens to the story, her face turns pale, anyway they reconcile until death set them apart, the vestal virgins - she is one of the rare few who are hard to meet; also I get this very late 18th, early 19th century feeling about this song; what's really weird is that it's not even sad:-(.

To me this song always represented a feeling in time. Because of that, I never really tried to decipher the meaning. I was in high school when I first heard this song in the summer of 1967. It was my first trip (to Spain) without any immediate supervision in my life. I was having a drink watching people in and around a Granada hotel pool marveling at how different this all was from the conventions of Midwest America when it played on the loudspeakers.. Its newness added the feelings of serenity and independence I was experiencing. Even now, 50+ years later, when i hear Whiter Shade of Pale, I flash back to that idyllic moment and feel a twinge run through me..

I had always assumed like Richard Wilson that it clearly borrowed from The Miller's Tale (sorta overt references, dontcha think?). And that it also clearly borrowed from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In that tale, is a pale woman.

I also felt the meaning went beyond that and the overall theme could be an analogy of the sinking of the of some great ship (real or from literature) to the image people had about the governments/religious orgs in the '60s (and often still do)
The song seemed to describe the way that people ignore things that should be obvious clues that something is amiss. But they just keep on playing the game. Until they sink and hit the bottom of the ocean floor.

No matter what, there is a lot of Neptune and the sea being referenced, so someone with a lot of knowledge of literature that deals with the sea would have an advantage here.

Read the Old English version of The Miller's Tale.
(And the Miller told his tale)
The verses may of been inspired by The Miller's Tale.
But there is no reason, the truth is plain to see....

And likewise if behind is in front ....
If it is dark is pitch, your eyes are open but you do not see

Absalon wiped his mouth till it was dry. 3730
The night was dark as pitch, as black as coal,
And from the window she stuck out her hole;
And Absalon, not knowing north from south,
Then kissed her naked ass with eager mouth
Before he was aware of all of this.


First Verse..

On which at night he'd play a melody,
So sweet a sound that all the chamber rang; 3215
And Angelus ad virginem he sang,
And after that would follow "The King's Note."
Folks often praised him for his merry throat.


My mouth has itched all day, a situation
That is a sign of kissing at the least.

Allison

I was reading through the lyrics for the second time when I was struck with the similarity the writing style has with the poem 'The Walrus and the Carpenter' by Lewis Carroll.
Carroll's work was a big influence in the 1960's, as is evidenced by the song 'White Rabbit' by Jefferson Airplane.
The imagery in the lyrics is surrealist, or perhaps dadaist, and seem to be greatly influenced by Chaucer, Lewis Carroll, Surrealism, and Psychedelia.
As a creative work on it's own, it is brilliant, and stands the test of time as one of the classics.
As has already been said here, there is no true narrative meaning, except for whatever thoughts and feelings it evokes in the beholder.

It was written to sound as a Dali painting looks. So the colors you see, the melting clocks, the feeling you would get from the painting is similar to the feeling you get from listening to the song. I don't know about you, but I get goosebumps every time I listen to the song, so I'dd say mission definitely accomplished!

Just like Dylan's Desolation Row the meaning is the juxterpositioning of images in our minds that have no connection to a literal meaning. It's for the enjoyment of the lyrics that areas unique and interesting as the best poetry. Poetry is often the same way. Interesting words and they're sounds. Multiple meanings and images with or without rythyms. The music at this period was psychadelic and the surroundings in the discoteques usually complimented the imagery of the lyics. The musicians and the fans dressed in black light or bright colors with Mod hippie styles of British invasion. To me the art and music of that time can be immitated but not repeated. The mind stretching lyrics that many heard while on acid or other intense drugs (like peyote and mesculine not meth, crack or angel dust) before it became passe and denigrated because of its association to the rock stars deaths like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. It was the best of times and the worst of times. From the Viet Nam war, civil rights violence to flowers, peace. All You Need Is Love, make that free love, Haight Ashbury, and Woodstock and finally to Altamont, and the Manson family. What had been a feeling of positive expansion of our consciousness turned into disenchantment and loss of the magical fantasy most young people were exploring. A Whiter Shade of Pale is from the height of that experience. You had to live through it to appreciate it. Hopefully there more great times ahead and not just high gas prices and global warming. Technology will either save us or kill us. Many hard to figure songs will be written along the way. Don't cheat yourself from enjoying them just because they aren't to be taken literally. For years I kepy trying to figure out Desolatoin Row. It and A Whiter Shade of Pale are the Finnagan's Wakes of music lyrics. Peace.

I always wondered what this song was about because. I had this song in my dream the night my dad passed away, I left for the hosp. To sign paperwork then I got to my car and turned the radio on this song was playing. I think it's about a person who throws their life away on the party life and leaves the truth behind, love of a family!

I always had a specific period in mind for this, which may have been thanks to all the movies this song was in, and the fact that you rarely hear the full lyrical version. I felt this was a song about a young man having his last night on the town before being shipped off to Vietnam. The first verse describes the setting and his mindset. The second verse was him trying to convince her to make love before he had to leave. I assumed the miller was just that, the town miller who happened to be at the bar, telling some grandiose store to the other patrons. As he did this her face turned from one shade to a whiter shade of pale, either by the millers story, or the suggestion being made to her by the soldier. That is usually all you hear of the song, so in that version, if my story is correct, the girl seems apprehensive, and the soldier seems desperate. Her saying there is no reason, and the truth being plain to see, would be the possibility of pregnancy, and the possibility of his death. Always made me feel bad, because there is no closure to the story, and its open ended. Does the vestal virgin that's heading for the coast get his desire?. This vestal virgin becomes her, once I discovered the rest of the lyrics. Now they are both in service. He, still a soldier, her, the navy. The rest becomes his metaphors of the sea to his love, as she does indeed give in to the drunken one night love affair, all the while, the miller keeping everyone else's minds occupied with his tale.

The ship of fools sailing in a sunnt stormy sea, with all kinds of souls on board. Sails are replaced by windmills, attended by a miller who does not take part in any festivities on board. The woman he loved has died, but the miller still can see her and she can hear him.. He tells her tales of what is happening in the real world on the ship of the living fools and preachers. That turns her face ffrom gostly to a whiter shade of pale. Almost transparent.
Music and laughter go together with rituals of love and farewell. And the beat goes on ....

I spent 40 years on and off wondering what this was about and so far all I know is that it is about he and a girl were t a club dancing and drinking. The miller is the man who grinds the barley and hops to make the beer; him telling his tale represents inebriation totally taking over. She was at first drunk and pale and progressed beyond that stage of drunkeness. I will think more on the other verses and perhaps 40 years from now I can have new interpretation including the miller is a reference relates to fales of chaucer and the millers wife was cheating on her husband and he came to the bar raising hell and things got out of hand.

Although it's been said the song is about a drunken seduction, with the haunting melody which owes much to J.S. Bach's Air on a G string, many people have always found many different meanings in this song. Perhaps there are many subliminal messages. The Miller first tell his tail (or at least the first we know of it), in Chaucer's, Canterbury Tails 1386. There are many other half remembered images, which make up this song into a Surreal work of art that plays on your mind like a Salvador Dali painting.

it is important to note that Gary Brooker did not write the lyric. Keith Reid is the writer. Definitely Chaucer. An earlier post by Richard Wilson is spot on. He is posting lyric from The Millers Tale. It interprets very well.
HOWEVER....
The great thing about music, literature, prowse... is that everyone can have their own interpretation. What it means to them.
That's what makes it great!

Ah so sad yet again children that didn't go through this age believe it was a covert song about drugs but much more likely and less talked about was illegitimate babies. To me this song is about a pregnancy to another man and the dilemma of love versus society with the truth getting conststantly told by the mirror as time goes on. Oh and rubbed in by the virgins which she said she was hence the whiter shade of pale. He loves her thoigh so his eyes might well have been closed but someone always brings it up as it always gets later where the truth is plain to see. Logically if this song was about drugs they would have admitted it by now, his fiancee have another guys kid no way!

Ugh Please... As a 15 year old in 1967, I have to say that MrKite has the best interpretation I have ever heard. This music, haunting, lonely, brings us ever so closely together as a generation. It conjures up one's one images. If you were lucky enough to have lived then, you understand. All the other interpretations are just nuts.