I write to music. In fact, I can’t write without it. It helps me immerse myself in a scene or setting. To pretend that there isn’t a soundtrack to our lives is just disingenuous. And while I’m editing and organizing the launch of a new project, my iTunes playlist lands on an oldie but goodie from the boomer generation.

Procol Harum’s greatest known work is pretty literary as far as a rock song goes. Some speculation (confirmed?) of sampling; the organ in the song’s opening bares an astonishing similarity to Johannes Sebastian Bach’s Air on the G String. Others trying to discern meaning from its rather obtuse lyrics — ‘the miller’s tale’ (a wink to Chaucer’s Canterberry Tales), ‘playing cards’ (a tarot deck), ’16 vestal virgins’ (a reference to the feminine divine, priestess to Vesta, Goddess of the Hearth)— and in their search, yield not a single satisfying explanation for me. Such a song that inspires curiosity around its creation and as a result develops its own mythology and makes this song– timeless. The nod to Bach, the progenitor of the diabolus en musica, which is also known as the diminished fifth — the tritone–  and minor note is the heart of the song.  It is chthonic,  primordial; it’s a sound that lives in the back of the throat, known to all as heartbreak and mourning, Lorca would call it ‘duende’, Cape Verdian’s would call ‘saudade’, perhaps the French would call it ‘le petit mort’. It’s what brings me back to listen each time. Much like a good story or poem. A small turn to make the whole work vibrate with intensity, emotion and heart.

And this song is a poem:

We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
as the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
the waiter brought a tray

I can accept its narrative and its seemingly disconnected imagery to construct a narrative of my own. A soldier or a sailor, a bar, a chance meeting, a love found and then a love lost. There’s a romance to it.

This obscure video offers no explanation for the meaning of this song (but it must of inspired Coldplay). But it does evoke something. Nostalgia? A memory? Loved but lost? I don’t know. I do know I love the super 8 video, the grainy washed out feel of the film, the paisley shirt, the pure karaoke aesthetic of it all.