Tubular Bells is the debut studio album by English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and songwriter Mike Oldfield, released on 25 May 1973 as the first album on Virgin Records. Oldfield, who was 19 years old when it was recorded, played almost all the instruments on the mostly instrumental album. The album initially sold slowly, but gained worldwide attention in December 1973 when its opening theme was used for the soundtrack to the horror film The Exorcist (1973). This led to a surge in sales which increased Oldfield’s profile and played an important part in the growth of the Virgin Group. It stayed in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart for one year from March 1974, during which it reached number one for one week. It peaked at number three on the US Billboard 200, and reached the top position in Canada and Australia. The album has sold over 2.7 million copies in the UK and an estimated 15 million worldwide.
Oldfield played the majority of the instruments on the album as a series of overdubs, which was an uncommon recording technique at the time. In total, 274 overdubs were made and an estimated two thousand “punch-ins” added later. Despite various guitars being listed on the album sleeve, such as “speed guitars”, “fuzz guitars” and “guitars sounding like bagpipes”, the only electric guitar to be used on the album was a 1966 blonde Fender Telecaster which used to belong to Marc Bolan and to which Oldfield had added an extra Bill Lawrence pick-up. All the guitars were recorded via direct injection into the mixing desk. To create the “speed guitar” and “mandolin-like guitar” named in the sleeve notes, the tape was simply run at half speed during recording. An actual mandolin was only used on the final track, the “Sailor’s Hornpipe”. Oldfield also used a custom effects unit, named the Glorfindel box, to create the “fuzz guitars” and “bagpipe guitars” distortion on some pieces on the album. The short “honky tonk piano” section at 13:48 on side one was included as a tribute to Oldfield’s grandmother, who had played the instrument in pubs before World War II. The staff and workers at the Manor made up the “nasal choir” that accompanies it.
Vivian Stanshall a former member of the comedic rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, was due to use the Manor after Oldfield, and had arrived while he was in the process of recording “Opus One”. Oldfield was a fan of the way in which Stanshall had introduced the instruments one at a time on the Bonzos’ song “The Intro and the Outro”. He suggested to Newman that he would like Stanshall to introduce the instruments in the same manner for “Opus One”‘s “finale” section, and Newman agreed to the idea. However, the shy Oldfield then needed some persuading by Newman to go and ask Stanshall if he would carry out the request. Stanshall readily agreed to be the “master of ceremonies” on the record, but Newman recalled that the job proved to be more difficult than anticipated, with Stanshall forgetting the names of the instruments and introducing them at the wrong points in the recording. Eventually Oldfield wrote out the list of instruments in order, indicating where Stanshall should introduce them. It was the way in which Stanshall said “plus… tubular bells” to introduce the last instrument in the finale that gave Oldfield the idea to call the album Tubular Bells.
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.
