# Whiter Shade of Pale meaning **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 16, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405 "2004-07-16T13:18:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lemon\_martini2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3be4f8/32.png) [@lemon\_martini2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lemon_martini2)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/1 "2004-07-16T13:18:16Z")
Anyone know what the hell the words to Whiter Shade of Pale mean?Is there some sort of story there?Is it a poetic allusion?Or is it just gobbledegook? ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/2 "2004-07-16T13:21:00Z")
It’s a song from the Sixties. Like all songs from the Sixties, it’s about what happens when a guy with a guitar takes drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/3 "2004-07-16T13:44:45Z")
I thought it was about getting drunk, not drugs (illicit ones, anyway). Was I wrong? Room spinning, feeling kind of seasick, etc. Sounds like a drunken bender to me. ---
**Author:** ![Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f0a364/32.png) [@Rube\_E.Tewesday](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rube_E.Tewesday)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/4 "2004-07-16T13:54:39Z")
Well, I was making a joke. I don’t have any idea what it’s about, but I’m pretty sure that substances of abuse played a part. ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/5 "2004-07-16T13:55:19Z")
I have heard the same: it’s about getting drunk until you feel sick. Hence, “whiter shade of pale”. ---
**Author:** ![TwoTrouts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a9adbd/32.png) [@TwoTrouts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TwoTrouts)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/6 "2004-07-16T13:59:16Z")
I had always thought that it was a riff on the _Cantebury Tales_, where a large diverse group of travelers are stuck at an inn. A raucous drunk crowd is getting even drunker, one drunk is hitting on a female sailor(?) while watching the reaction of a vestal virgin to all the happenings. The miller is apparently fightening her quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/7 "2004-07-16T14:32:12Z")
> [@TwoTrouts](#): > > I had always thought that it was a riff on the _Cantebury Tales_, where a large diverse group of travelers are stuck at an inn. A raucous drunk crowd is getting even drunker, one drunk is hitting on a female sailor(?) while watching the reaction of a vestal virgin to all the happenings. The miller is apparently fightening her quite a bit. I had heard that explanation but a search of [this site](http://www.procolharum.com/w/w9901.htm) turned up [this article](http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_lotgs.htm) which says the Chaucer thing is off-base. It is apparently about story-telling, alcohol and sex. BUt I don’t have time to read the whole thing so maybe someone else can find something I missed in there. ---
**Author:** ![Spiff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiff/32/9852_2.png) [@Spiff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiff)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/8 "2004-07-16T17:26:50Z")
> [@Tiramisu](#): > > I had heard that explanation but a search of [this site](http://www.procolharum.com/w/w9901.htm) turned up [this article](http://www.procolharum.com/awsop_lotgs.htm) which says the Chaucer thing is off-base. Also from that site, re AWSoP: > [@](#): > > I don’t know what they mean. It’s never bothered me that I don’t know what they mean. This is what I find rather hard, that, especially in America, people are terribly hung up about lyrics and they’ve got to know what they mean, and they say, “I know, I’ve figured out what these lyrics mean.” I don’t give a damn what they mean. You know, they sound great… that’s all they have to do. > > Matthew Fisher on BBC Radio 2, March 2000. ---
**Author:** ![BurnMeUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@BurnMeUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BurnMeUp)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/9 "2004-07-16T18:05:50Z")
It’s not an interpretation, but whenever I think of that song I think of the use in New York Stories where Nick Nolte is a Pollock-esque painter and his girlfriend a young nubile girl (one of the Arquettes?) leaves him to his drinking and painting and curmudgeonly ways while she goes out and picks up on younger guys at dance clubs. You see the pain and jealously ripping at him while he drinks and paints and listens to that song over and over again. While every night she dresses up and leaves him. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/10 "2004-07-16T18:35:10Z")
For a crystal-clear explication of the song, just turn to the video. You know, the one with Harry Dean Stanton obsessively playing solitaire while an actress who looks like Beverly D’Angelo but isn’t Beverly D’Angelo gads about with someone dressed as a cowboy or something. Couldn’t be clearer. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/11 "2004-07-16T18:53:13Z")
If you have to ask, you’ll never understand. ---
**Author:** ![Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ba8739/32.png) [@Backwater\_Under\_Duck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Backwater_Under_Duck)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/12 "2004-07-16T23:47:44Z")
Or as Mr. Natural would say: “If you don’t know by now, don’t mess with it.” Analyzing songs of the sixties is a truly pointless endeavor. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/13 "2004-07-16T23:56:02Z")
I always took the lyrics as an elaborate, Monty Python-esque joke. Just as Monty Python was forever combining highbrow and lowbrow humor in the same sketch (Elizabethan poets obsessed with porn, for instance), Procol Harum lyricist Keith Read was using flowery, ornate language to describe something that was rather cheap and tawdry. On a literal level, the song seems to be about a band putting on a show for an enthusiastic crowd, then going off to get drunk and score with groupies at an after-gig party. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2004, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whiter-shade-of-pale-meaning/255405/14 "2004-07-17T00:17:08Z")
All I know is that I’ve never heard that song the same way since I watched _The 10th Kingdom_.