Changeling

[avevale_intelligencer]

...is the title of Mike Oldfield's autobiography, which i'm about halfway through as i type.

You have to understand that this man, to me, is a musical god, and like all gods he's as flawed and human as the rest of us (never understood why people want their gods to be perfect: how could a perfect being ever understand us?) and this comes over very clearly in the writing, which he seems to have done unaided. There's a certain amount of spiritual New Agey flannel (and then he wonders why people think of him as a hippy: apparently he wanted to be a rocker) and the family problems that messed up his childhood, as well as the bad acid trip that crippled him emotionally for years, are described in merciless detail.

The one thing he doesn't do, as much as i would like anyway, is talk about the music. He says that the way he talks about the music is through the music (my words, not his, but that's what it boils down to) and that makes sense to me, but it's still a little disappointing.

Anyway. Back to the book. Which i recommend if you're at all interested in the man behind the twiddly bits.

Comments

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

That's truly a shame. Did it not think it would be interesting to go over the creation of, for instance, Ommadawn? The guy is beyond incredible as a musician, and I agree with you on wanting to know much more about what went into the creation of his music.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

i've just skipped forward to the Ommadawn bit, and there are about six pages, but it's more about the execution than the creation, and i could have done with a lot more. He says he just can't put it into words, which i guess is fair enough.

[armb.livejournal.com]

> how could a perfect being ever understand us?

If you assume the possible existence of a perfect being, then it could understand us perfectly, by definition - maybe after perfectly imagining what it would be like to be us so it could experience imperfection, and then reflecting on that with perfect wisdom.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Um. Since we can't do that, i question the perfection of the understanding...but this is one of those can God make a rock She can't lift questions (as well as depending what you mean by "understanding"), and not strictly relevant to the post.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'll have to look for that, he was one of my early influences. Pity there isn't as much about the music, but I understand if he finds it hard to express in words. Thanks for the recommendation.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

That sounds interesting. I feel an inter-library loan coming up!