MISTAKE

'Mistake' is a fast-tempo pop song sung by Maggie Reilly. It was not on albums except in the US pressing of Crises (1983). In Europe its album appearance was on the double compilation The Complete Mike Oldfield in 1985. The song is, in my opinion, among the less interesting pop hits by the Oldfield & Reilly partnership. It lacks the ethereal atmosphere of 'Moonlight Shadow' or 'To France', but it does have some personal rhythmical complexity comparable to 'Family Man' or 'Five Miles Out', and it is so straight-forward at the same time that it's quite nice. The sticky and heavily repeated chorus sounds close to girlie pop such as Cyndi Lauper or The Bangles, only with more unusual time signatures.

'Waldberg (The Peak)' is a light-hearted instrumental that sounds unmistakably Mike Oldfield. Think of tight plastic producion of his other short instrumentals like 'Guilty' or 'Blue Peter', slow down the tempo and add the Uillean pipes from Ommadawn's second side. The composition shifts between the folky Celtic part and the other part dominated by the naive synth phrase. Unfortunately it all feels very calculated and readily chewed easy-listening muzak. It lacks the humour of some other tunes or the lazy hazy romanticism of 'Jungle Gardenia'.

PS. Unlike most other singles I've reviewed here, this one actually is in my small and useless collection of vinyl singles that I happened to gather in my teens.