[19] The song has been included in many music compilations over the decades and has also been used in the soundtracks of numerous films and television shows, including The Big Chill, Purple Haze, Breaking the Waves, The Boat That Rocked, Tour of Duty, House M.D., Memory, Martin Scorsese's segment of New York Stories, Stonewall, Oblivion, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's documentary series The Vietnam War, and the limited series The Offer and Billions.

[22] Claes Johansen, in his book Procol Harum: Beyond the Pale, suggests that the song "deals in metaphorical form with a male/female relationship which after some negotiation ends in a sexual act".

[23] This is supported in Lives of the Great Songs by Tim de Lisle, who remarks that the lyrics concern a drunken seduction, which is described through references to sex as a form of travel, usually nautical, using mythical and literary journeys.

[21] Contrary to the above interpretations, Reid was quoted in the February 2008 issue of Uncut magazine as saying: I was trying to conjure a mood as much as tell a straightforward, girl-leaves-boy story.

As the chorus commences "And so it was, that later ...", the vocal and organ accompaniment begin a short crescendo, with the organist running his finger rapidly down and up the entire keyboard.

Gary Brooker said of his composition in his interview with Uncut magazine: If you trace the chordal element, it does a bar or two of Bach's 'Air on a G String' before it veers off.

[39] Cordell was concerned that the sound of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" might prove problematic on the radio, due to the prominence of the drummer's cymbals.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band topped the national albums chart, marked the start of the Summer of Love in Britain.

[41] In December 1967, New Musical Express readers voted the song "Best British Disc This Year", ahead of "All You Need Is Love" and "Massachusetts".

[42] According to music historian Harvey Kubernik, in the context of the Summer of Love, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was the "one song [that] stood above all others, its Everest-like status conferred by no less than John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who were enthralled by the Chaucerian wordplay and heavenly Baroque accompaniment".

[43] Kubernik also writes that, amid the search for higher consciousness during the flower power era, the song "galvanised a congregation of disaffected youth dismissive of traditional religion but anxious to achieve spiritual salvation".

[44] In a 1981 article on the musical and societal developments of 1967, for The History of Rock, sociomusicologist Simon Frith described "A Whiter Shade of Pale" as the year's "most distinctive single", through its combination of "white soul vocal and a Bach organ exercise" and enigmatic lyrics that "hinted at a vital secret open only to people in the right, drug-determined, state of mind".

Along with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", "A Whiter Shade of Pale" was jointly recognised as "The Best British Pop Single 1952–1977" at the BRIT Awards, part of Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee.

[54] It features four of the five musicians who played on the hit single: Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher, David Knights and Ray Royer, in performance and walking through the ruins.

Only the drummer in the video is not on the record: early band member Bobby Harrison is seen miming to session man Bill Eyden's drumming.

The film was directed by Peter Clifton, whose insertion of Vietnam War newsreel footage caused it to be banned from airplay on the BBC's Top of the Pops TV show.

[56] Originally airing on various networks from late 1985 into 1986, this video starred Harry Dean Stanton and Bernie Taupin, but featured no member of the band.

[57][58] In 2005, former Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher filed suit in the High Court against Gary Brooker and his publisher, claiming that he co-wrote the music for the song.

[59] Fisher won the case on 20 December 2006 but was awarded 40% of the composers' share of the music copyright, rather than the 50% he was seeking and was not granted royalties for the period before 2005.

[60] Brooker and publisher Onward Music were granted leave to appeal, and a hearing on the matter was held before a panel of three judges during the week of 1 October 2007.

The decision, on 4 April 2008, by Lord Justice Mummery, in the Court of Appeal upheld Fisher's co-authorship[61] but ruled that he should receive no royalties as he had taken too long (38 years) to bring his claim to litigation.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" was covered by American rock supergroup Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve for their 1984 album Through the Fire.

Steve Baltin from Cash Box named the song Pick of the Week, writing, "For the second single from her Medusa album, which is all covers, Lennox takes on one of rock's true classics.

Sans the psychedelic feel that Procol Harum had on the original version the song metamorphisizes in Lennox’s distinctly elegant hands.

Starting with a simple, yet lovely, keyboard sound the song takes on the cool detached feel of Lennox that one of music's most accomplished singers has become famous for.

[127] Steve Sutherland from NME felt the album "is worth investigation if only for Ms. Lennox's interpretation of [...] 'A Whiter Shade of Pale'.

The original is such flimsy pseudo-classical tripe that even its author has admitted he hasn't got the faintest idea what it's about but, miraculously, Ms Lennox renders it even more absurd, her version resembling the house band at a particularly godforsaken holiday camp at the end of a very long, damp and underpopulated season.