So the colors you see, the melting clocks, the feeling you would get from the painting is similar to the feeling you get from listening to the song.

But I wandered through my playing cards And they would not let her be One of sixteen vestal virgins Who were leaving for the coast And although my eyes were open wide They might have just as well been closed And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale She said, Im here on a shore leave, Though we were miles at sea.

I pointed out this detail And forced her to agree, Saying, You must be the mermaid Who took King Neptune for a ride.

And she smiled at me so sweetly That my anger straightway died.

And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale If music be the food of love Then laughter is its queen And likewise if behind is in front Then dirt in truth is clean My mouth by then like cardboard Seemed to slip straight through my head So we crash-dived straightway quickly And attacked the ocean bed And so it was that later As the miller told his tale That her face, at first just ghostly, Turned a whiter shade of pale.

The lyrics of A Whiter Shade of Pale helped me to disappear into a fantasy world, and escape for a few minutes into a world of contradictions, hope and despair, love and war, prejudice and defiance.

When I hear this song today, I feel a sense of nostalgia for a time when young people joined the Peace Corps, lived with nature, marched for civil rights, loved hard and felt the need to give back to the world.

My first guess was that a couple in love were on an island with a hurricane, but then, I came to the conclusion that it might be a couple on the Titanic, having last drinks and knowing they were doomed.

Perhaps he is trying to distract her by calling her a mermaid for a last laugh, but he sees her face turn into an image of a dead person.

To me, its a very sad song, and I tear up each time I listen to it.

Perhaps this explanation is too simplistic, but makes more sense to me.

And that it also clearly borrowed from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I also felt the meaning went beyond that and the overall theme could be an analogy of the sinking of the of some great ship (real or from literature) to the image people had about the governmentsreligious orgs in the 60s (and often still do) The song seemed to describe the way that people ignore things that should be obvious clues that something is amiss.

But they just keep on playing the game.

No matter what, there is a lot of Neptune and the sea being referenced, so someone with a lot of knowledge of literature that deals with the sea would have an advantage here.

Because of that, I never really tried to decipher the meaning.

I was in high school when I first heard this song in the summer of 1967.

It was my first trip (to Spain) without any immediate supervision in my life.

I was having a drink watching people in and around a Granada hotel pool marveling at how different this all was from the conventions of Midwest America when it played on the loudspeakers.

Its newness added the feelings of serenity and independence I was experiencing.

The miller is the man who grinds the barley and hops to make the beer; him telling his tale represents inebriation totally taking over.

She was at first drunk and pale and progressed beyond that stage of drunkeness.

I will think more on the other verses and perhaps 40 years from now I can have new interpretation including the miller is a reference relates to fales of chaucer and the millers wife was cheating on her husband and he came to the bar raising hell and things got out of hand.

There are many other half remembered images, which make up this song into a Surreal work of art that plays on your mind like a Salvador Dali painting.

A Whiter Shade Of Pale