Tubular bells is an incredibly remarkable album. A contemporary concept album by a 17-year-old Mike Oldfield released in 1973h, mixing prog rock, folk, classical music and a heaping spoonful of comedic features. An album responsible for the tonal presence of The Exorcist, the rise of a multi-industry empire, and a very interesting afternoon for me.
I happened upon Tubular bells in a Carlisle record shop one hungover Friday, when I was helping a friend move out. In a small alley record shop, as customers gawked at a vintage White Album and I surveyed a beautiful first print Rainbow “Kill the King,” there it was; Tubular bells.
If you have ever seen the cover of Tubular Bells, you understand the reverent symbolism and tangible mystery in it. I had never heard of it as an album, never seen the cover, but on my introduction I was inexorably convinced to buy it out of sheer curiosity… almost an act of divine intervention. After explaining my purchase to my unfaithful friend he agreed to hear it. With sufficient relaxation and heightened awareness, we began. We began a journey, one our inhibited and inebriated selves would never truly return from.
The first side is a melancholic introduction, a dour invitation to mass. The spellbinding expanse, the iconic theme of The Exorcist (1973). The cavernous tones build upon themselves layer by layer as the synthetic symphony constructs itself in front of you, while it tangos between genre and tone.
Where the pious pitches made way for the more grungy, aggressive, slightly distorted guitars, was the point in which I noticed the length of the song; Tubular Bells is one of those peculiarly arty albums where the entire first side is one continuous contusion, mirrored in side 2.
The final reduction and reconstruction at the end of “Pt. 1” is verbally introduced one by one by the Master of Ceremonies Vivian Stanshall – he proclaims “grand piano,” announces “glockenspiel,” heralds “two slightly distorted guitars,” before culminating in the climactic titular “Tubular Bells.”
I should note here Mike Oldfield is credited with 20 instruments on the production of this album – keyboards, pianos, guitars, bass, percussion, winds, as well as his “vocals” on track 2. Tubular Bells was also the first album of Virgin Records which was co-founded by Richard Branson, who would later expand the Virgin brand, nicely affording himself a trip to space – hardly an astronaut, but this does mark Branson a “spaceflight participant” in NASA terminology – an accolade owed to Tubular Bells. Likewise, our listening experience turned moving day into a journey to the brave beyond.
Track two, deftly titled “Tubular Bells – Pt. 2,” is much more medieval feeling than the first, a sense achieved by a series of organs, both synthetic and classical. A wheezing, plaintive bagpipe sound, like a thematic churchyard funeral, present throughout the tune, was actually achieved by a “glorfindel box” attached to Oldfield’s ‘66 telecaster (which formerly belonged to Marc Bolan).
The musical connection between tracks one and two creates a sensation that the two were almost mutually inspired, with certain musical odes to each other – a real chicken-and-egg mystery.
As the track proceeded, the choral elements act to further enforce the religious tones present throughout the album returning it to an almost hymnal piece made to be played in a parish or mass. There we were, ourselves exorcised of sobriety, and in the palm of Oldfield’s hand – beholden entirely to the Bells.
The rock moments appearing through the length of the album, accompanied by classical and some new wave, make it especially hard to categorise this two-track adventure. Ultimately, the album gained some fame and reputation as a unique piece of music and its connection to The Exorcist, but the journey that fateful day became was unforgettable. Tubular Bells is one-of-a-kind, and definitely an exorcism worth having.
Author: Dylan McVey(He/Him)
@dylan_mcv11
