Song of the Day 7/14: Procol Harum, “Simple Sister”

Trump’s primitive brain sees power as dynastic, and Lindsey Graham had no children. So Trump’s choice for Lindsey Graham’s replacement is … Lindsey Graham’s sister! Why, it’s just like Merrie Olde England – elevate the closest living relative to the title.

(To be fair, it’s a longstanding practice in American politics to appoint a wife to finish a dead husband’s term. That’s not uncommon in Delaware – Cathy Cloutier’s 22-year career in the General Assembly began when she was appointed to finish her husband Phil’s House term after his death in 1998.)

Given the nature of politics in South Carolina, home of Nancy Mace, Darline Graham Nordone sounds much better than I would have hoped for. She spent her career in disability services and her only political involvement was campaigning for her big brother, who became her legal guardian when their parents both died. She was just 13.

News organizations have been caught flat-footed by the swift announcement; I haven’t found anything yet about her husband, so often the Achilles heel for married women in politics. She promised to continue Lindsey’s work, but it’s doubtful she’ll be as good at attaching herself to Trump like a leech or insisting Bibi rely on the U.S. for its weaponry.

Just a hunch, but I suspect she’s smarter than her brother. Her birth certificate spells her name the traditional way, Darlene with an ‘e.’ She spells it Darline with an ‘i’ because that’s the way she was taught to write it as a tot – by Lindsey.

Procol Harum had the misfortune to debut with a single that sold an unheard-of 10 million copies, so everything they did after that paled by comparison (sorry). By their fifth LP, 1971’s “Broken Barricades,” organist Matthew Fisher had already left and guitarist Robin Trower would soon follow him out the door; its only constant member through the band’s history was multi-instrumentalist, singer and principal composer Gary Brooker, who died in 2022.

“Simple Sister” is one of the album’s standout tracks, but it wasn’t released as a single in the U.S. or Britain. The band wouldn’t reach the Billboard charts again until the next year, when their live version of “Conquistador” with the Edmonton Symphony hit No. 16. The sister in the song dies of whooping cough, which makes this an apt choice for RFK Jr.’s America.