I can believe that. I have no idea what was in his head at the time. But what slightly disturbs me is that’s the sort of sound I would make on the tubercular bells because I don’t know how. There were spontaneous decisions: Viv Stanshall did the narration only happened because he has hanging around, waiting to use the recording facilities after Mike Oldfield. Apparently, his emphasis on “plus … tubular bells!” give Mike Oldfield the idea for the name for the album according to Wikipedia. The article goes on to say…
Producing the sound that Oldfield wanted from the tubular bells proved problematic: he wanted a loud note from them but both the standard leather-covered and bare metal hammers did not produce the volume that he wanted. In the end Newman obtained a heavier claw hammer and Oldfield used it to produce the desired sound intensity, cracking the bells in the process.
I didn’t know any of this until a few minutes ago. All I had was a nagging sense the the bells weren’t being hit right.
After a night on the town, a gentleman takes a lady back to his place. On walking into the bedroom, she spots a huge gong standing in the corner.
“What the hell’s that?!” she asks.
“That,” says the gentleman, “is a talking clock.”
The lady expresses her incredulity and disbelief.
So the gentleman picks up the hammer and hits the gong as hard as he can.
After the noise dies down and her hearing returns, the lady hears a banging on the floor from the apartment above, and someone shouting, “SHUT THE FUCK UP! IT’S TWO FIFTEEN IN THE GODDAMN MORNING!!”
