So, it’s been a little while again since my last blog. Again life has got in the way a little bit, and while I’ve been leaving you all in peace I’ve been down to visit my Mum. While there I managed to pick up the rest of the full CD collection. So this blog and the next will make up the last of the ‘hand-picked’ selections that I made and from there the plan is still to pick things out at random and hope for the best really. Having (sort of) counted all of the CDs up it now appears that there are around 550-odd other CDs to go at still, and as such there’s a chance that the Internet will have ceased to exist before i get through them all - but that doesn’t deter me in the least. Makes it more of a challenge, but something I am sure I will still enjoy doing. Also hoping to pick the pace up a little and starting posting more regularly again. The feedback that I have received so far has been positive too - so thank you to everyone for their kind words so far.
So on to our CD for this blog which was another selection that simply had to make it into the hand-picked list because it’s a piece of music that I will always, always link back to my Dad and also something that I know I enjoyed listening to as a child (and have continued to enjoy listening to as an adult as well). 'Tubular Bells’ by Mike Oldfield is a very famous piece of music and listening to it even now, I am astonished at how cleverly put together it is and am reminded of many a drunken evening during my childhood (again, not me being drunk) where this would be retrieved from the CD rack and the volume cranked right up.
A lot of people may know this as the music from “The Omen” but certainly to my knowledge only the first 3 or 4 minutes of the track actually feature and I think these have been somewhat over-exposed throughout the rest of my life and it’s only once you get past those initial stages of the first track on the CD (imaginatively titled ‘Part One’ - but also making up the first 25 minutes of the CD) that is starts to really get going and develops into a piece of music that you can lose yourself in. Genre-wise this falls under “Prog-Rock” and as such don’t expect too many lyrics you can sing along to or anything you could dance to - to me this is a real ‘listeners’ piece of music and has to be played end to end to be fully appreciated. Part 2 is a bit more varied and is oddly enough isn’t something that rings as much of a bell (yes… every pun intended there) with me. Maybe once I’d got through my favourite parts I switched off and stopped paying as much attention.
My Dad’s take on the album itself was that it helped Richard Branson (a former indirect employer of mine throughout my career) to start to build his fortune, but that he only achieved this through having ripped Mike Oldfield off. How true or otherwise this may have been isn’t something I’ver ever delved into too much but perhaps some of my own experiences while a (very very very small) part of the Virgin empire go so way to explaining why this resonated with me and why it’s stuck in my mind since then. In any event, I can ever imagine a set of circumstances where I wouldn’t want to listen to Tubular Bells - regardless of its fame or infamy.
My overall favourite part of the album is where, over a bass guitar (I think) backdrop, a range of different musical instruments (starting from grand piano on its own and working through to …. well… Tubular Bells really) play essentially the same tune with each new instrument adding to the overall effect and building to something wonderful. That building up of layers of different instruments is a fascinating process to follow through and noting how each different instrument adds to the overall picture has always appealed to me. Again, my Dad could almost certainly have rattled off each instrument in order at the drop of a hat. Not something I can quite manage yet, but on the off chance that it ever crops up as a pub-quiz question I am determined to try and get them all nailed down in my mind. If nothing else I’m pleased that I knew it started with grand piano and if I couldn’t have worked out the last instrument I think I would have been seriously disappointed in myself.
Now, I could spend another few minutes or few hundred words trying to ‘sell’ you on how good this album is, but I’m hoping that I’ve enticed you in enough for you to want to seek it out and listen to it for yourself. With all of these music streaming services and systems nowadays I’m sure it can be fairly easily tracked down and appreciated in full. All I would ask is that you don’t simply listen to the first few minutes of it but set aside 50 minutes or so and listen to the full things from end to end. It’s that good that it deserves that I think. Maybe it’s also something that you’ve heard throughout your own childhood and through you life and if so it’s something I’d highly recommend revisiting and enjoying again. So that’s your homework to complete before I publish the next blog I think… See you all next time for the next instalment.
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