I’m writing this, because I can no longer find anyone to talk to about it without it dragging something down on me. I tried – somewhat naively – to talk about it at home, some time ago. Did you know that the demo of the beginning of Tubular Bells 4 has been released? Nice… but it’s a shame that Mike retired, it seems he won’t complete it…

And meanwhile one expects, I don’t know, a certain participation in the pain. Yes, because it is a pain, certainly not comparable with other stronger pains, for goodness sake. But it’s a pain, definitively. In the sense that one feels a taste, a flavor of something, but cannot continue, it remains precisely a hint. You walk along a beautiful, tree-lined road, with many things to look at along the way. And then, at the first bend, when you are waiting for a change of panorama, you find a STOP sign right in front of you. Just when one would like to know more, to get into the matter better.

There’s just enough to make you say ok, I’m interested, I like it, let’s see… but then nothing, you don’t see anything. Stay there. Remain in demo.

And participation is limited. Wife, son (wisely) tell you Come on, but still with Tubular Bells? By now he has said everything, of course he has left it alone… a used and abused theme. And what are you going to reply to him?

Which is true, all true, in the first instance: Mike Oldfield (who just yesterday celebrated his seventy-first birthday) has made records and records about it. But the truth – and you’re almost ashamed to say it – is that you’re fine with it, you’re fine with the fact that Mike has made records and records about that theme. Because let’s face it, you would continue to listen to those records, because you simply like the way this guy puts things to music . You’re almost ashamed, but you like it. It speaks to you . And that electric guitar passage intrigues you, and that slight variation on a used (and perhaps abused) theme is enough for you to hear something new in the air. Something new on an old (for you) theme, a known theme but which doesn’t tire you, hasn’t tired you, hasn’t tired you yet.

But yes, Marco, you have to admit it: you’re a guy who loves to go over the same things over and over again, as we know by now. Anyone who knows you, knows this well. People, on the other hand, want new things, while you often go back to the same paths. For example, you’re one of those who would watch Jarry McGuire over and over again, even though you practically know every scene by heart.

I know, it’s because each time you can go deeper into the study, you can see more deeply, you can deconstruct the work – you know the pieces well by now – and then reconstruct it in your mind and confirm, in this way, that it is precisely Pretty. Sometimes almost wonderful. In that note, in that nuance of the face, in that sequence. Jerry McGuire should be analyzed scene by scene, and certain scenes in particular (and as soon as the last one, with the famous you had me at hello) should be studied with great attention. In short Marco, that’s how you are.

So, the different accent in the introduction sequence of Tubular Bell 4 is enough and after a first listen in which you seem to have become like the others, you almost always tell the same story but then, unexpectedly, you fall into it all. And this variation of accent (I don’t know how to say it, my knowledge of musical theory is rather poor) has already taken hold of you, you really want to hear something else, you almost need to hear something else.

Which is just a demo, let’s realize what the finished product would be like (and the crazy hope lives indomitable in me that sooner or later I’ll finish it). But no one really cares, or at least no one around you. Because luckily for you, those around you are normal people .

Yet a hint of a work of art is something special. in a certain sense it is as if the universe, the stars, the distant quasars, made room for this new little universe to come into existence, this way of understanding things and the relationships between things. A work of human creativity teaches you something. It introduces you to a new cosmos, you enter and begin to marvel, but the journey is soon interrupted. Of course, after the intro there is the variation at the four minute mark, this airy, sunny panorama opens up. Handsome. But soon you are left with a sense of longing: I understand, you have shown me that there is more than my ordinary way of thinking (which every good work of art does), but you stop first, you don’t lead me to this other: it’s not a journey that takes me to new places and returns me home, richer.

This is a journey that makes me foresee new places, places, sensations and scents that speak to my heart, but everything remains open, it fades (as the final arpeggio of the piano fades) and you emerge as if from a dream that ended too soon, with a feeling of what it could have been. But you don’t know. And there is this, that a mathematical theorem left unproven, a scientific intuition about the nature of the cosmos (say now, a problem to be solved with the Hubble constant), all these things can change hands, be initiated by some and completed by others. A work of art, no. A work of art speaks of the artist and of what in his heart corresponds to yours, in a profound empathic connection that surpasses ten thousand universes. An unfinished work of art is simply unfinished. For sure, not even artificial intelligence (which is responsible for the cover image, anyway) can complete it .

And now that you’re writing, confess it, the nostalgia has taken you back, you’ve put the demo back to listen for the umpteenth time. And you wouldn’t get tired either. Good thing you have earphones, huh.

Dear Marco, you would almost be arrested.

Imperfectly translated from stardust.blog.