10 Rock Songs Written Completely By Accident

10. Whiter Shade of Pale - Procol Harum

For your average rock fan, most people think it takes something special to write a classic melody. No matter how much talent you might think you have, sometimes the stars have to align at the exact right moment for everything to actually click in the studio. Or if you're Procol Harum, just making mistakes until you make a hit.

While A Whiter Shade of Pale sounds like it's been around since the beginning of time, the actual construction of the song came from the pianist screwing up his classical warm ups. Going through the classic piece Air on a G String, Gary Brooker talked about butchering the first few bars and (not knowing where to go from there) decided to just carry on and see where the music took him. Using the opening chord as a kick off point, he slowly turned the classic Bach piece into the great '60s anthem that we know today.

Even when talking about it today, Brooker almost denies that he even wrote the song at this point, feeling that it was more about being in the right place at the right time rather than anything that could have happened by design. It pays to learn from your influences, but in this case, getting halfway there might not be all that bad either.