“I always try and make the words for my songs sound poetic and have a lot of meaning, but I never think of them as being poems. I think of them more as my statements,”: that’s what the great Keith Reid, who died of cancer on March 23rd at the age of 76, told this scribe when asked about whether he viewed himself as a poet or a lyricist. Keith wanted to be seen as the latter yet, of course, he belonged in pantheon of the former and should have been praised if only for the immortal imagery of “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” – the first fruit of Reid’s long-term partnership with singing pianist Gary Brooker that announced the advent of PROCOL HARUM to the world which fell in love with the surrealistic ballad.
