AR Roots: A Whiter Shade Of Pale – cover by AndyR

[dasilvasings]

I don't know how I missed this!

Your playing and singing is flawless.
It was very brave, and not at all obvious to skip the Hammond "riff". Your justification makes a lot of sense, and... it works!

Thank you very much for:

posting your cover
the thorough explanation of your creative process (yes, a cover can be creative too!)
sharing your recording techniques
and...

...last but not least...

... explaining what the heck the lyrics meant after all ;-)

I think I know the lyrics by heart (yep, also one of my fav songs ever) and I didn't have a clue of their meaning.

Miguel

[Ted]

I had no idea this was such an iconic song. I recently covered it (with kenny mac) mostly because it was an opportunity to play organ on my SY-1 for the Lost in 2022 Fest. It's interesting to put it in context. It was released 56 years ago this month. It was pre-prog, pre-Sgt. Peppers, pre-Court of the Crimson King, pre-tentious at the time. Nobody had done anything quite like it, apparently.

I now realize that it's been covered four other times here on Songcrafters: By Jean Pierre (instrumental), Johnny Robbo (instrumental), PJ (broken song), and by you, AndyR.

And from this article I learned that it's been covered by the Dells, Jack Mack and The Heart Attack  (really good), Joe Cocker, Willie Nelson, Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, Johnny Rivers, the Hesitations, R.B. Greaves (whoever the fuck he is),  Annie Lennox, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Engelbert Humperdinck, Dylan Menzie, Michael Fucking Bolton, and many others.

And every version either turns up the bombast (with soul singers, symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras, guitar solos, harpsichords and harps, Joe Cocker being Joe Cocker), or it's a somewhat faithful karaoke recreation of the original (same song, different singer).

No cover version that I've found (and I'm tired of listening to covers) does what you have done: to strip the song down to one voice and one instrument. Something about this song invites excess, and you declined the invitation. Great instincts, and a great performance.

[AndyR]

Thanks for the kind words Ted
Just been listening to this again, remembering the grief it was trying to capture what I sing on the sofa sometimes.
Then I read the essay I wrote on how I did it.
I couldn't BELIEVE it
Now I'd just sit on the sofa and capture it with one mic!
Oh well, I'm quite fond of this recording (although I remember some of the other vocal performances in other takes were so much better).

NEways, I strongly suspect all the commercial covers (and I've not really heard one I like even half as much as the original) kind of missed the point of what made them do the song, the thing that moved them in the original version. Yes the original has a very cool organ sound, the harmonic stuff is cool, the way it rolls, and the fabulous in your face mono mix, the cold echo-ey vibe... All that stuff is the scenery and the lighting, the heating and fragrance in the auditorium...

But if you're going to do a vocal version, you have to recognise that what really moved you once the scene was set in the original. It was Gary Brooker's fabulous "factual" delivery of some very "interesting" and "evocative" lyrics that clearly meant something to him. It's chilling and reassuring at the same time. It's a shared loss. You "know" what he means even if you don't know what he's singing about.

I have a feeling that some of the producers (and even the singers?) of the more famous cover versions didn't realise what the original recording was conveying to them, so they concentrated on the scenery. And the scenery, eg that that organ motif, can get very schmaltzy or chocolate boxy if you try to put too much emotion into playing it...

When I sing this, I am singing about a sexual episode, with someone I just met, that promised so much but in the end failed because the intoxicants caught up with us before we could consummate it... and her face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale... just before she threw up all over the bed, or passed out, or.. whatever. To me it's a song of utter regret and missed opportunity and I absolutely adore what it does to me.

There's other ways of doing it, but that's the one I have to do sat on the sofa... and it feels like it worked on this recording. If I tried to do it again I'd probably over do it.

I'm listening to the Joe Cocker version now. I love Joe Cocker, I cried SO much when he died. But this version doesn't do the song I love. It's stodgy, there are too many people in the room (the backing singers). That moment when the girl passes out HAS to be a private intimate moment... the boy and girl wouldn't be reaching for that moment with all those people in the room.

I didn't understand all that when I was making this recording. The things I wanted to do would've meant I had to do more than just me and a guitar, and Mrs R wanted the version I do sat on the sofa. This still isn't it, but it's closer than if I'd added the things I wanted to hear... and it lets the song I sing here shine through.

It was my decision to decline the invitation to excess, but it was made to satisfy both what Mrs R wanted and still make a recording I liked and was prepared to publish (that was what was driving all the mic and post-processing stuff, I guess).

Interestingly, listening now, I'm unhappy at the guitar and how it's a bit mushy. And it IS, but that isn't the important bit on this song, is it? It's about getting just enough scenery and lighting to enable the listener to suspend disbelief and engage with the emotion the singer is feeling.

Just listening to yours with Kenny again - you guys have managed the same thing. Gorgeous organ sound. No overplaying or over production, and no over singing.

In Jean Pierre's instrumental version on the dobro, he can automatically avoid the trap we're tempted by on vocal versions... but he also avoids the temptation of overplaying the emotion in his playing, something I wouldn't have managed if I'd played it on guitar.

But then, I'm just listening to The Shadows version. That seems to fall into the "look at my playing" trap, but, actually, it still WORKS... especially the second half... I wouldn't bother listening again, though!

And that R.B. Greaves version has some glowing comments... doesn't move me though, there's too much "singer" vibes on it for what I want in this song...

It's just a matter of what one is after I guess! And luckily different folks like different stuff       

[TPB]

Lots of effort on this one but it was so worth it love everything about the cover vocals were outstanding
Bravo brother
Tim

[Ted]

When I sing this, I am singing about a sexual episode, with someone I just met, that promised so much but in the end failed because the intoxicants caught up with us before we could consummate it... and her face at first just ghostly turned a whiter shade of pale... just before she threw up all over the bed, or passed out, or.. whatever. To me it's a song of utter regret and missed opportunity and I absolutely adore what it does to me.

I've found a lot of online discussion about the meaning of "as the miller told his tale" – many people asserting it's a reference to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Miller's Tale from Canterbury Tales told by the drunken miller. The lyricist, Keith Reid, claims he'd never read The Miller's Tale. Maybe, all this time, everyone has overlooked something more obvious and lowbrow. "The miller told his tale" is a euphemism for throwing up when drunk on Miller beer. It's as simple as that.

The Shadows version. That seems to fall into the "look at my playing" trap, but, actually, it still WORKS... especially the second half... I wouldn't bother listening again, though!

I hadn't heard this version. I didn't make it to the second half. I already heard in my head exactly how it would sound, and I was right. I slightly preferred the version in my head.

[Jean Pierre]

I listened again to the versions of whiter shade of pale of Ted and Kenny Mac, AndyR,..and mine and it's really three beautiful versions, quite different from this great classic of the 60's
It's nice to have them together for a moment