By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Few songs of the 1960s, outside of The Beatles’ later output, has perhaps inspired more head-scratching than Procol Harum’s 1967 hit ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’. Even the band’s name is likely to invite puzzled looks from people who first encounter it. Who, or what, is a ‘procol harum’? And what does describing something as ‘a whiter shade of pale’ actually mean? Continue reading “The Curious Meaning of Procol Harum’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’” →