Mike Oldfield's Single - UK Single

UK Single

• "Mike Oldfield's Single (Theme from Mike Oldfield's album 'Tubular Bells')" - (Oldfield) 4:33
• "Froggy Went A-Courting" - (traditional, arr. Oldfield) 4:27

Virgin VS-101, issued June 28, 1974

Mike Oldfield was already recording his next album, Hergest Ridge, when he produced this new piece to be released outside North America, in place of the American single. Instead of using either of the 2 popular excerpts from that single, Oldfield chose to re-arrange a section of "Tubular Bells part 2", the so-called "guitars sounding like bagpipes" section, now presented in a pastoral arrangement similar to much of Hergest Ridge, and featuring Lindsay Cooper on oboe, who had played a similar section on Hergest Ridge. Mike Oldfield likely plays all other instruments, which include multiple layers of acoustic, electric, and bass guitars, and harmonium.

Side 2 is the popular children's song, set to a new melody by Oldfield, and spoken rather than sung by Mike Oldfield and Vanessa Branson (sister of Virgin boss Richard Branson), who take turns reciting lines. Despite the way it's spelled on the label, Oldfield deliberately enunciates his opening line as "The frog went a-courting...", and nowhere does the word "uh-huh" appear, as it did frequently in the better known children's version. No list of musicians appears on the cover, but the song is believed to have been played by Mike Oldfield on vocals, guitars, mandolin, probably bass guitar, and possibly piano (or the latter may have been played by David Bedford), Vanessa Branson on vocals, Lol Coxhill on saxophone, and an unknown drummer. A number of places also cite the female vocalist as Bridget St John, instead of Branson.

A cover was included with some copies, and is unusual in that it is black and white on the front, and in colour on the back. Side 1's sub-title is shorted to "Theme from Tubular Bells" on the front. The cover was designed by Trevor Key, who designed the cover for Tubular Bells and many other Oldfield and Virgin albums. The front shows Mike sitting on a park bench, while a dove is about to land in the foreground, and is clearly a composite of 2 separate photos. The back shows a colour photo of 2 frogs mating; a typical example of the Virgin label's naughty sense of humour at the time.

Just as Tubular Bells was Virgin's first album (or, to be precise, one of three albums released on the same day), "Mike Oldfield's Single" was Virgin's first UK single, but issued more than a year later. This demonstrates that Virgin was primarily an album label in its early years, with little interest in being a contender for the singles charts. Even so, the record charted at number 31 on the UK Singles Chart.

This version was also issued in Sweden, Portugal (second edition), Greece, and Yugoslavia. In some countries, the sub-title is translated into a local language.

"Mike Oldfield's Single" was remastered and remixed for the 2009 Mercury Records reissue of Tubular Bells.