Procol Harum - Nothing That I Didn't Know (1970)
- 2 days ago
Well, welcome to winter. And if you thought Halloween was the time for ghost stories, in actuality the proper season has always traditionally been the winter months of January and February. One of the most famous ghost tales ever brought to the big screen was, indeed, Ghost Story (1981), which takes place in the very dead of winter at a time when four former college chums, now pushing 80 years of age, have been getting in the habit of sharing their tales of graves and ghouls at a round table in a dim study illuminated only by a well-stoked fireplace.
This song by Procol Harum is not a ghost story per se, but it does have strong Gothic overtones in its haunting lament over the wasting death of a lovely young woman well-known about town, Jenny Droe, 26 years of age. It's a modernized version of "Cockles and Mussles" and how young Molly Malone of Dublin "died of a fever and no one could save her." The empathetic grief of the protagonist singing vainly about how he wishes he could trade places with the dead girl is ghostly enough in tone and topic, with a potential twist of some sort of morbid inside knowledge.
This, believe it or not, has always been one of my most favorite songs on the Procol Harum album, Home, released in 1970. I used to like to sing along with Gary Brooker's vocal when it played, one of rock's greatest vocalists. Critics were mean to it, largely due to a generous amount of songs with Gothic overtones. For me that was a definite plus. Of course the big Robin Trower rocker, "Whisky Train," alone was worth the price of admission, and was one of the band's most memorable FM radio underground hits, right up there with "A Salty Dog" and "Simple Sister."
Some wonderful silent era film footage which was either tinted or to which I have given similar color treatment. In beautiful, large old-fashioned 4:3 ratio.
This song by Procol Harum is not a ghost story per se, but it does have strong Gothic overtones in its haunting lament over the wasting death of a lovely young woman well-known about town, Jenny Droe, 26 years of age. It's a modernized version of "Cockles and Mussles" and how young Molly Malone of Dublin "died of a fever and no one could save her." The empathetic grief of the protagonist singing vainly about how he wishes he could trade places with the dead girl is ghostly enough in tone and topic, with a potential twist of some sort of morbid inside knowledge.
This, believe it or not, has always been one of my most favorite songs on the Procol Harum album, Home, released in 1970. I used to like to sing along with Gary Brooker's vocal when it played, one of rock's greatest vocalists. Critics were mean to it, largely due to a generous amount of songs with Gothic overtones. For me that was a definite plus. Of course the big Robin Trower rocker, "Whisky Train," alone was worth the price of admission, and was one of the band's most memorable FM radio underground hits, right up there with "A Salty Dog" and "Simple Sister."
Some wonderful silent era film footage which was either tinted or to which I have given similar color treatment. In beautiful, large old-fashioned 4:3 ratio.