It has been a tumultuous past few weeks here in the Heartland and across North America. The mid-term elections are coming up, there’s a new PM in Britain, there are wars and rumors of war, and the rhetoric has become shrill. Perhaps it’s time for some musical therapy. I know I could use some about now.
The selection this week is very nostalgic for me, but I want to offer this to people of all ages who may or may not have heard it before. I’ll post the first version for those who may not be familiar with it. This is the studio organ version of the melody from the song. After playing the melody, it switches to background and harmony for the lyrics in the original, but this cut is instrumental only. Consider listening in the dark, or with the screen covered, or with eyes closed.
I ask everyone to listen to this first, then listen again. What does it suggest to you? Is it happy or sad or something else? Is it pleasant? Is it toe-tapping? What kind of day or atmosphere does it suggest to you? Does it bring images to your mind? Does it evoke memories from a time in your life? What do the sounds mean to you? Share your reactions in the comments section if you wish.
Rein de Jong, A Whiter Shade of Pale, the organ part
When the song came out in 1967, there was no real opportunity to hear it anywhere except on the radio. It might have been performed on television shows like Ed Sullivan or American Bandstand, but I never saw it there myself. For millions of teenagers in that year, and in the months it played repeatedly during 1968, it was a radio phenomenon. Those who bought the vinyl single or the album would have played it on their stereos at home. Lots of sound “systems” were still mono, like the Emerson console record player my dad had won for sales about 1959.
The year 1968 was full of tumult, too. The war in Vietnam was at its height, with half a million American troops there, along with troops from allied nations like Australia, South Korea, Canada, Britain, and others. In January, after various bombing halts and bad-faith negotiations, the Tet Offensive began in Vietnam, with major attacks by North Vietnamese and VC forces all up and down the country. That attack continued through February and the fighting that began during Tet continued for many weeks afterward. Walter Cronkite, the CBS evening news anchor, went to Vietnam to see for himself, and when he returned he went on the air on February 27, 1968 to declare that the war in Vietnam could not be won. Everyone was shocked and many were angry. I watched Cronkite give that report at the end of the broadcast that night, unable to believe that the massive NVA offensive that had just been defeated meant that the US couldn’t win. Something was very wrong.
It was a highly charged political year. Practically everyone was dissatisfied with Lyndon Johnson’s bumbling use of troops and air power in Vietnam. Still, the public was told everything was under control. The Tet offensive exposed that idea for the lie it was, and on March 31, President Johnson announced he would not seek re-election for another term. That left the field wide open for others. Eugene McCarthy, the ‘antiwar’ senator from Wisconsin and Vice President Hubert Humphrey got in, along with Robert Kennedy, senator from New York. The scramble for the suddenly open seat in the White House filled the newspaper headlines every day. At the same time, Richard Nixon, Eisenhower’s vice president, was making a comeback, leading for the Republican nomination for president against other rivals. George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama was also running in southern primaries, hoping to gain a following outside of his state.
Just four days after Johnson’s announcement, an assassin shot and killed Martin Luther King as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. There was shock and disbelief, then there was unrest and rioting. Fighting continued in Vietnam with sickening weekly death tolls featured on the news broadcasts.
On June 5, the day of the California primary which Robert Kennedy won over McCarthy and Humphrey, another assassination took place in Los Angeles. On his way out of a hotel after giving his primary victory speech, a gunman walked up to Kennedy and shot him in the head. He didn’t survive the night.
It was a summer of unrest and seething chaos. In my home life was unsettled. Both my older brothers had moved out to start lives and families of their own. I had fallen hard for an angelic girl two years before. In August of 1968 her family moved halfway around the world, apparently forever. I started high school that fall, entering 10th grade. I just didn’t know what to do. It was a miserable summer.
The Republicans held their national convention the first week of August in Miami Beach with plenty of demonstrations and shrill national news coverage. But when the Democrats held their convention the last week of August, all hell broke loose. Demonstrators of every stripe descended on the convention in Chicago, with police battling demonstrators and crazies in full formed battles around the convention center. Mayor Richard Daly, a legendary Democrat, sent the Chicago police to clear the streets and they did so, cracking heads and firing tear gas to break up the determined crowds.
The fall campaigns, bitterly contested, brought Richard Nixon a narrow victory that even Mayor Daly could not throw the Democrats’ way this time. Exhaustion and despair was thick in the air by the time Christmas came along.
The highlight of the entire year was the broadcast from the crew of Apollo 8 as they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve. The astronauts read from the creation account in the Book of Genesis, then sent their best wishes back to everyone “on the good Earth.” I saw that broadcast and heard them that night, and, like many people, felt the isolation of our planet in the vast universe. Like all of earth’s residents, I was grateful to be somewhere warm and comfortable on solid ground. It was a moment of magic in a year of disquietude. The year 1968 was about over, and I was happy about that, but fearful of what 1969 would bring.
The Apollo 8 broadcast from orbit around the moon:
It seemed that one particular song played nearly throughout the year on the radio. A group called Procol Harum released A Whiter Shade of Pale in mid-1967. It gradually went up the charts to #1 in Britain and reached #5 in the US. It was long by the standards of the day at 4:03, a minute and a half longer than the typical single. When it aired on the radio, there was time to savor and really lock into it. It came with lyrics that were hard to understand, which was not unusual with pop tunes. They were often difficult to hear or translate. I didn’t bother to look up the lyrics or seek to understand what they meant. The sound carried me through that unhappy summer of 1968 listening to the radio, reading classics, and building scale models of WWII aircraft.
Have a listen to the original recording that set the tone and mood for a year of turmoil, war, and loneliness. The bass, the percussion, the organ, and Gary Brooker’s voice combine for a remarkable experience every time I hear it. What does it say to you, Dear Reader?
Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.
