Morse Code in Tubular Bells (2021)
13 comments
·January 23, 2025null
kazinator
Another British morse code in music story: in the title theme of the 1980s sitcom "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em", the rhythm of the notes is a deliberate morse code which spells out the title of the show.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Some_Mothers_Do_%27Ave_%27Em#T...
What the Wikipedia page doesn't mention this, but I read long ago that the composer of the tune received only a small one-time payment for it and no royalties, despite the popularity of the show.
flobosg
A Canadian morse code in music: The intro of Rush’s “YYZ” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YYZ_(song)#Title_and_compositi...
xanderlewis
See also the theme music of the television version of 'Inspector Morse', though perhaps that's not very surprising.
Jordan_Pelt
...and the opening of the Rush song YYZ.
ryandrake
The article is about a studio device unintentionally picking up Morse code during recording. But that's not the only intersection between Mike Oldfield and Morse code. Oldfield also deliberately (and quite obviously, if you're listening for it) inserted into one of his later albums: a not-so-nice Morse code message[1] to Virgin Records founder Richard Branson, with whom he was at the time fighting over how he was being treated by the label and lack of promotion. At around the 48 minute mark of Amarok, you can hear a synthesizer loudly tap out "F U C K O F F R B" in the recording.
hvs
"VVV" in Morse code means "attention, incoming message".
Cool to see amateur radio and fldigi in a Hacker News article.
xanderlewis
Yep. I've seen it used in place of 'CQ' when testing propagation conditions to avoid other stations coming back and attempting a contact. It always reminds me of the Doctor Who theme: ...- ...- ...-
ahazred8ta
A nearby VLF station was transmitting its 'GBR' callsign.
TheOtherHobbes
Radio pickup is a huge problem for audio electronics.
I used to live near someone with a CB radio, and the pitch of one of my synths would go up by a semitone when they were transmitting.
kazinator
> Tubular Bells was famously recorded at The Manor Studio
I think that's referenced in the 1983 Black Sabbath song "Trashed".
It really was a meeting
The bottle took a beating
The ladies of The Manor <---
Watched me climb into my car and
I was going down the track about a hundred and five
They had the stop-watch rolling
I had the headlights blazing I was really alive
And yet my mind was blowing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_Again_(Black_Sabbath_albu...
I was listening to this decades ago, and saw the note on the cover that the album was recorded at The Manor, so I put that together.
null
The transmission signal path on the first map also looks an awful lot like the album cover for Tubular Bells:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0d/Mike_oldfield...