Post by Brian on Apr 2, 2023 23:00:11 GMT -8
I wrote most of this post in my head last year when I was mourning the death of Gary Brooker, lead singer and pianist in Procol Harum and the composer of most of the band's music, but I never got around to doing it. Then last week we lost Keith Reid, who wrote the lyrics for Brooker. Though Reid didn't play an instrument, he attended all of Procol Harum's recording sessions and all but a few of its concerts over a dozen years.
I became a fan at age 9 when "A Whiter Shade of Pale" filled the air, as did John Lennon, who reportedly played the single nonstop on the record player he installed in his Rolls Royce in the summer of 1967. "Conquistador," a live track recorded with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, was a slightly lesser hit in 1972 that resonated strongly on KHJ at the height of the Chicano Power movement. I lost interest in Procol Harum after buying the "Grand Hotel" album in 1973, but I discovered their next release because of an industrial accident. I bought a bargain 8-track at a truck stop during a road trip to Humboldt County in 1976 because the label pictured Genesis' "Foxtrot" album. Instead, the tape inside was a copy of Procol Harum's "Exotic Birds and Fruit."
That album was not only their finest achievement, it contained my favorite Reid-Brooker song. "As Strong as Samson (When You're Being Held to Ransom)" has perhaps the most cynical lyrics ever committed to a gorgeous, soaring melody. Thanks to the internet, I've since read that the album was recorded in late 1973, truly dire times in England with overlapping labor strikes, civil unrest and the Arab oil embargo in the wake of the Yom Kippur War. Sessions were interrupted by frequent blackouts. I was bitter in my mid-teens after Vietnam and during Watergate. Now I'm an old man yet I feel hopeful despite the world's urgent climate calamity and the fascist assault on democracy and civil rights. My youthful enthusiasm for the song's opening lines -- "Psychiatrists and lawyers destroying mankind/Driving them crazy and stealing them blind" -- embarrasses me in retrospect. We thought the world might end in the 1970's -- now that it really is, we each have to do something about it. We can no longer afford to waste time blaming each other.
But this is still a one helluva song, I say.
A deep dive into "As Strong as Samson" for anybody interested: www.procolharum.com/tn+sq/ebaf_fn_strong.htm