And for the next riddle…what was the song whiter shade of pale about?
Don't like the adverts? Click here to remove them
Riddle time.
- Thread starter Chas
- Start date
Chas
Well-Known Member
SEX!
according to Wiki,
Reid was quoted in the February 2008 issue of Uncut magazine as saying:
I was trying to conjure a mood as much as tell a straightforward, girl-leaves-boy story. With the ceiling flying away and room humming harder, I wanted to paint an image of a scene. I wasn’t trying to be mysterious with those images, I was trying to be evocative. I suppose it seems like a decadent scene I’m describing. But I was too young to have experienced any decadence, then. I might have been smoking when I conceived it, but not when I wrote. It was influenced by books, not drugs.
I can see I'm going to have to listen to it again but until then I'll say I'm none the wiser.
Not wanting to split hairs, Chas, but if I understood it correctly, the name of the cat on its pedigree certificate was "Procul Haren" yet the breed was "Burmese".
Could be wrong mind.
Not that this matters much at all, just an observation.
Last edited:
Some nice old quotes found when looking into this...
It has indeed often been said that Procol Harum is Latin for 'beyond those things'. It has also been pointed out before that this isn't quite correct, although I have never read 'the whole story': if you translate 'beyond those things' into Latin, you would get 'procul his' (which may at least throw some light on the frequent occurrence of Procul in references to the band – as you will know, the word can even be found on some 'Best of' albums!).
Procul, in the sense of 'far away from', is always followed by an ablative, in this case 'his', with 'harum' being the feminine genitive plural 'of these things' (the latter has also been mentioned by Keith Reid in an interview, although I do not remember exactly which one).
...and from Gary Brooker...
We didn't invent it, our manager at the time 'phoned up and said he'd found a name. We said, 'What is it?' 'Procol Harum.' 'Oh, great.' And it sounds like us, in fact, sounds like what we sound like, so that was that. He didn't just pluck it out of the air, it was the name of a Pedigree name of a cat of a friend of his. And ... er ... of course everyone went, 'What does it mean? What does it mean?' We didn't know it, so we had to find out. We did find out that we actually had got the name wrong over the telephone, we spelt it wrong. But in Latin, the cat's name was 'Procul' with a 'u' and 'Harun' with an 'n' on the end, 'Beyond these things' in Latin. We got round to saying that Procol Harum in fact meant 'Beyond these things', which was a nice coincidence: at least it didn't mean, 'I'm going to town to buy a cow' or something.
...and Joan May commenting on what Mathew Tepper said...
".. ah well, if 'Procol Harum' can try to pass for an attempt to translate 'Far Out' into Latin ..."
thought "that's a perfect way for the band to have acquired its name, even though it probably isn't how it really happened".
...and to the question "who's cat was it?"
In the early sixties, Ash shared a flat with the blues singer Long John Baldry. They used to go busking together up Ladbroke Grove, Baldry singing and playing guitar and Ash handing round the hat. Often, they were accompanied by a young ukulele player known as 'Long Haired Eric' (Eric Clapton) ... Ash passed his pipe and told some more of the stories. 'I had this cat called Procol Harem,' Ash told us. 'A Burmese, a sweetie she was. At this time, '66, '67, I was dealing acid to the beautiful people. Sold it to Hendrix a few times. Gary Brooker was one of my regulars. He played in a group called the Paramounts. He was always around mine. What's your cat called Ash? he asked me. Procol Harem, I said. So they changed the name of the band'.
nice.
It has indeed often been said that Procol Harum is Latin for 'beyond those things'. It has also been pointed out before that this isn't quite correct, although I have never read 'the whole story': if you translate 'beyond those things' into Latin, you would get 'procul his' (which may at least throw some light on the frequent occurrence of Procul in references to the band – as you will know, the word can even be found on some 'Best of' albums!).
Procul, in the sense of 'far away from', is always followed by an ablative, in this case 'his', with 'harum' being the feminine genitive plural 'of these things' (the latter has also been mentioned by Keith Reid in an interview, although I do not remember exactly which one).
...and from Gary Brooker...
We didn't invent it, our manager at the time 'phoned up and said he'd found a name. We said, 'What is it?' 'Procol Harum.' 'Oh, great.' And it sounds like us, in fact, sounds like what we sound like, so that was that. He didn't just pluck it out of the air, it was the name of a Pedigree name of a cat of a friend of his. And ... er ... of course everyone went, 'What does it mean? What does it mean?' We didn't know it, so we had to find out. We did find out that we actually had got the name wrong over the telephone, we spelt it wrong. But in Latin, the cat's name was 'Procul' with a 'u' and 'Harun' with an 'n' on the end, 'Beyond these things' in Latin. We got round to saying that Procol Harum in fact meant 'Beyond these things', which was a nice coincidence: at least it didn't mean, 'I'm going to town to buy a cow' or something.
...and Joan May commenting on what Mathew Tepper said...
".. ah well, if 'Procol Harum' can try to pass for an attempt to translate 'Far Out' into Latin ..."
thought "that's a perfect way for the band to have acquired its name, even though it probably isn't how it really happened".
...and to the question "who's cat was it?"
In the early sixties, Ash shared a flat with the blues singer Long John Baldry. They used to go busking together up Ladbroke Grove, Baldry singing and playing guitar and Ash handing round the hat. Often, they were accompanied by a young ukulele player known as 'Long Haired Eric' (Eric Clapton) ... Ash passed his pipe and told some more of the stories. 'I had this cat called Procol Harem,' Ash told us. 'A Burmese, a sweetie she was. At this time, '66, '67, I was dealing acid to the beautiful people. Sold it to Hendrix a few times. Gary Brooker was one of my regulars. He played in a group called the Paramounts. He was always around mine. What's your cat called Ash? he asked me. Procol Harem, I said. So they changed the name of the band'.
nice.
Chas
Well-Known Member
You're right Clive, it was a Burmese Blue breed but it's registered pedigree name was Procul Harun. https://www.google.co.uk/search?sou...1T4GUEA_enGB660GB660&q=cat+breed+procol+harem
.
The cat's Cat Fancy name was Procul Harun, Procul being the breeder's prefix.
'The band Procol Harum was named after a Blue Burmese male cat named Procul Harun,' confirms Rosemary, after consulting the registration document and pedigree certificate the Cat Club was bequeathed when the cat's breeders died in the mid Eighties.
Don't like the adverts? Click here to remove them
It's all a nice read Chas, I like the casual references to "going busking with Long John Baldry" often accompanied by "a young ukulele player known as 'Long Haired Eric' (Eric Clapton)".
Priceless.
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2013
- Messages
- 17,108
This prompted me to while away a few hours last night when everyone should be asleep seeking from where songs derived , the one that cracked me up was Moody Blue's "nights in white satin" . A legend of a song to my mind but reading between the lines its actually about bed sheets that didn't fit 
Bravo whoever gave this creative genius satin sheets when he was tucked up in his bedsit pining for the girl that dumped him
Bravo whoever gave this creative genius satin sheets when he was tucked up in his bedsit pining for the girl that dumped him
Chas
Well-Known Member
No that's not right
Air Ship
Chas
Well-Known Member
That is one, there's two more.
Chas
Well-Known Member
That's it Shayne.
I knew that…
The first two were so obvious I thought you just wanted the third.
Going to sulk now!
Chas
Well-Known Member
I did say there were two more , you shoulda gone to SpecsaversI knew that…
The first two were so obvious I thought you just wanted the third.
Going to sulk now!
I've only just logged on Chas. Been a workin' all day!
