I suppose this track really ought to have been much higher up this list. However, I didn’t want the category to contain any obvious songs from the 60s (hence no Beatles, no Rolling Stones) nor – certainly after a few weeks – repeats of the same artist. When I posted the band’s Shine on Brightly I thought I had already featured Homburg here. (I had, but before I started the Friday on my Mind category.)

A Whiter Shade of Pale is so quintessentially 60s that it’s a bit clichéd as an exemplar from the decade.

But this still sounds so fresh, possibly because of its source material, Bach’s Air on the G String.

The original video/film was surely in black and white. That’s certainly how I remember it. This one must have been colourised.

Anyway here’s where Prog Rock might be said to have begun – at least in the public’s mind.

Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale

This is one of my favourite relative obscurities from the sixties. It is by a group called Rupert’s People. The band was actually cobbled together from various elements to make the single.

I think one of the reasons I like this is because of the classical influence. As the above links note, the song itself was adapted from an earlier version (which I would love to hear sometime) to fit the tune of Air On A G String.

It had the great misfortune to be released just after the similarly inspired A Whiter Shade Of Pale began sweeping all before it.

Unlike Whiter Shade Of Pale, though, the lyrics of Charles Brown are not laden with obscurity even if they do perhaps constitute a bit too much of a downer to have become a big hit.

I also like the “cracked” quality of the singing voice. I believe it was the song’s composer, Rod Lynton.

I’m not quite sure why whoever posted this on You Tube used pictures of a construction site.

Edited to add:- the original video is no longer available. The one below is a replacement.

The B-side, Hold On, was more or less a straight forward rocker but it’s a storming track in its own right.