![\"Julian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Julian-Lennon-2023-Far-Out-Magazine-F-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music)<\/p>\n
Mon 15 September 2025 13:00, UK <\/p>\n
Do you remember the first time you heard \u2018A Whiter Shade of Pale\u2019? I was in the front room, watching the 1987 darkly funny Withnail and I, probably too young to fully understand the film<\/a> but delighting in the absurd mundanity and dry wit of it all. <\/p>\n Something that you don\u2019t need to be over a certain age to understand is the monumental King Curtis cover of \u2018A Whiter Shade of Pale\u2019 that runs over the opening sequence. That was my introduction to the song, originally written and performed by Procol Harum, but it\u2019s fair to say that Julian Lennon\u2019s introduction to the track was a little more spectacular. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was December of 1968 and my Dad and Yoko [Ono] took me to the filming of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus in Wembley\u201d, he remembered, noting, \u201cThe TV studio was made to look like a big circus tent. People were in costumes, from stilt walkers to frightening clowns, the works.\u201d <\/p>\n He went on to offer a poetic recollection of details from the moment, acknowledging, \u201cIt was sensory overload for sure, especially at the age of five. I recall walking into this open doorway, and there was a shaft of purple light coming through, angled on the end of the corridor and the ceiling. And \u2018A Whiter Shade of Pale\u2019 was playing. It\u2019s always stuck with me, and it\u2019s a song I\u2019ve always enjoyed listening to because of the chord changes. It\u2019s probably why I like playing and writing and recording the way I do.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, elsewhere, Julian has recalled that not only was that the first time he remembers hearing the track, but it is the first memory he has of hearing any music at all, saying, \u201cI was three, I think. I remember going, \u2018I kind of like this\u2019. Songs bring you back to the time and the place.\u201d\u00a0Growing up around The Beatles, you\u2019d have expected him to have half remembered being around to hear the conception of \u2018All You Need is Love\u2019, \u2018Strawberry Fields Forever\u2019 or his favourite of their songs, \u2018A Day in the Life\u2019, but that was not the case. <\/p>\n Backstage across the two days of filming, December 11th and 12th, 1968, the then (actually) four-year old son of John Lennon would have had plenty of chance to stumble upon rehearsals, recordings and performances by groups and artists from the stellar line up like Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull or The Stones themselves, as well as groups like Jethro Tull, The Who and The Dirty Mac<\/a>. <\/p>\n But even though Procol Harum weren\u2019t booked to play, or even present at, the event, it was their beguiling baroque-pop masterpiece, released the year before and which was later voted \u2018The Best British Pop Single 1952\u20131977\u2019 (tied with the far inferior \u2018Bohemian Rhapsody\u2019), which stuck with young Julian the most.\u00a0<\/p>\n For everyone else, the moment that sticks in the mind from the whole Rock and Roll Circus is probably the moment Ono appears from under a black sheet while the Dirty Mac supergroup are playing and begins to wordlessly but emotionally wail into the microphone, seeming to duel with violinist Ivry Gitlis (who looks to be loving the absurdity of the moment) to see who can hit a higher note. Gitlis might have won that particular competition, but Ono pushed him about as close as humanly possible. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Apple Music) Mon 15 September 2025 13:00, UK Do you remember the first time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,25396,64853,128,64854,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-139238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-john-lennon","tag-julian-lennon","tag-music","tag-procol-harum","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}