Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

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A Whiter Shade of Pale

Brian Wilson's funeral ... two references

Alan Matthews sends BtP the following extract from a translation of a recent interview with ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson.

Interviewer (discussing the gathering of past recorded material prior to rehearsing tracks for the recent SMiLE concerts)
In your autobiography you say that there are only a few fragments in the Capitol vaults because it was bad music: how do you feel about that now?

Brian Wilson
Not bad. Experimental yes. I would call it corny drug influenced music. The year I worked on it was the heaviest in my life. I remember A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum was released. I was so sensitive for the dramatic organ sound, that I thought it was my funeral tune. When I hear it now, I think I'm at my own funeral, Strange huh? Those were heavy times. I was crazy and still am. Or, not crazy, more like insane. Ha!

The whole interview is online here although it has been posted as an often misspelt translation from its original source, the Arts Supplement of Dutch paper De Volkskrant, 24 June 2004, and written by Gijsbert Kramer. The article itself has caused a lot of controversy and concern among Brian Wilson fans on the internet for the crass way in which the interviewer has reported the obvious depressed state he was in at the time.

Jim Corbett sends BtP part of a Brian Wilson interview from October 2008’s Record Collector. 'Thought it might be of interest,' writes Jim, 'Usually people seem to want it played at their wedding.'

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