HFoS Top Five Procol Harum Songs
To bring Head Full of Snow’s Procol Harum Week to a close, we list our five favourite tunes from the erudite songsmiths of psychedelic and progressive rock grandiose.
Actually, following a ruddy great trawl through what’s on offer, this may be retitled our “five favourite Procol Harum tunes available on YouTube.” They’re all absolute stonkers, nonetheless. ‘A Salty Dog‘, ‘Grand Hotel‘ and ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ are absent from this list as they were posted earlier this week.
So with no further nonsense, let’s get stuck in.
No. 5 -- Homburg
Procol Harum’s follow up to ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale‘ was released in September 1967 and continued the hypnagogic classical melancholy of that phenomenal hit with some more abstract, yet carefully crafted lyrics (c/o Keith Reid), and Gary Brooker’s piano taking prominence over Matthew Fisher’s Hammond organ. It reached No.5 in the UK charts and is available as a bonus track on Procol Harum’s debut album.
No. 4 -- Pandora’s Box
Resplendent in marimba, keyboards and flute, ‘Pandora’s Box’ appeared on the 1975 album, Procol’s Ninth, their penultimate release before the band name was retired in 1977 for a hefty 14 years. The song was originally recorded in an instrumental form as far back as August 1967, which is also included as a bonus track on the debut album. The ’75 version reached No. 16 in the UK charts.
No. 3 -- Nothing That I Didn’t Know
“Did you hear what happened to Jenny Droe?” -- Me neither, but this atmospheric lament makes one think it was something pretty bad. Gary Brooker breaks out the accordian at the end of this one, and if anybody’s curious as to what Procol Harum’s silent member -- lyricist Keith Reid -- looks like, that’s him with the curly hair and glasses looking forlorn in the first shot of the video. ‘Nothing That I Didn’t Know’ appeared on the 1970 album Home.
No. 2 -- Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)
An excellent, if almost funeral-style dirge, from Procol Harum’s second album, Shine on Brightly, released in 1968. ‘Magdalene (My Regal Zonophone)’ takes its name from the record label (Regal Zonophone) the band were signed to at the time, one that had been around since 1932 and was in 1967 revived as an imprint by EMI. Two versions of the song were recorded, both appearing on the Salvo/Fly reissue of Shine on Brightly. This is the album version, which Gary Brooker said of, when interviewed for Dutch radio in 1979, “… never quite captured the warmth and magic of the original version.” I, for one, have to disagree.
No. 1 -- Whaling Stories
Even if ‘Grand Hotel‘, ‘A Salty Dog‘ or ‘AWSoP’ had been allowed into this top five, they would’ve all been pipped to the finishing post by this, one of the finest examples of progressive, symphonic or any other kind of rock you might wish to mention. Truly Procol Harum’s magnum opus, ‘Whaling Stories’ is epic in every sense of the word. A nightmarish nautical fantasy from the pen of Keith Reid with superb composition by Gary Brooker, it builds and builds to a fantastic choral finale. First seeing light of day on the 1970 album Home, ‘Whaling Stories’ is Head Full of Snow’s top track from the titanically technicolor, yet criminally underrated, Procol Harum archives. And thereby hangs a tale.
Procol Harum’s debut album
Don’t just read and applaud. Subscribe to the rather splendid RSS Feed
Recent Comments