As is reflected in the fact that I feature their music every chance I get (for a while there every time Sam Brownback did something crazy I’d post “The Devil Came From Kansas”), I’ve been a big Procol Harum fan a long time. I think it started when I was working 70 hours a week doing brutal physical labor week in a potato chip factory and trying to figure out what to do with my life. Many evenings (or mornings once I moved to the graveyard shift) I’d fall asleep listening to Procol Harum’s second album, Shine on Brightly, and particularly the aggressively introspective “In Held Twas I,” which highlighted vocalist and instrumental writer Gary Brooker’s relationship with lyricist Keith Reid. To this day I don’t know of another rock band that employed a full-time poet, but it’s part of what made them special to a confused 19-year-old with no interest in listening to music I could dance to.
Here are some far more contemporary midday news/views treats:
* Denny Hastert’s attorneys appear to have headed off what was initially the intention of prosecutors to publicly reveal nature of the “misconduct” at the root of the case. Doubt lid will stay on for long.
* James Comer concedes to Matt Bevin after recanvassing of KY GOP gubernatorial primary vote that maintained Bevin’s 83-vote victory.
* Paul Krugman points to another new study–this one from the Fed–about U.S. household financial insecurity.
* Confused by the vast GOP presidential field? Check out David Graham’s handy-dandy “cheat sheet” on the candidates.
* At Ten Miles Square, Martin Longman discusses possible links between Hastert indictment and past allegations he benefited from a Turkish drug money laundering scheme. All this is totally new to me!
And in non-political news:
* Interesting WaPo feature on how we went from one “reality show” to 300 in just fifteen years.
As we break for lunch, here’s the aforementioned “In Held Twas I (Part Two)” as performed by Procol Harum in 1972 with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
