I think I’ve finally understood Brian Eno’s masterpiece, ‘An Ending’. During my typical late night trawl through my mind with this playing in the background, I stumbled upon two things.

Firstly, a comment on a forum that mentions the fact that after every ending there’s a new beginning. In other words, there technically really isn’t such a thing as an ending, if something else will just start straight after it.

Secondly, another review of the masterpiece mentions the fact that what makes it so special is the smooth transitions between different chords (I’m no musician, so it’s hard to me to explain, but you get the picture; a smooth transition between one note to another). Something then suddenly struck me: endings transition into beginnings all the time, in the same way that each chord of the piece transitions beautifully into the next. 

Trying to understand this piece has been an obsession of mine for the past ten months, and I’ve finally figured it out (I think). The way that the piece is constructed leads your mind onto the fact that out of every (often sad) ending comes a new (happy) beginning. This is the reason why there’s such a ‘schizophrenic’ theme to this song; it’s tremendously uplifting yet has a crushing element of sadness to it at the same time. It takes you through multiple endings (which is what happens in life), then takes you onto beginnings after each one. This is repeated for four minutes and twenty six seconds.

What does this all mean? Well, the song fucks with your emotions but in a good way; it takes you through ups and downs. I’ve finally realised why An Ending has such a massive effect on me - whenever I listen to it, negative emotions and memories are brought up, but seconds later a happier one is brought up, then another sad one, then a happy one, et cetera. It’s this that makes you take a deep trip through your mind. But the transitions between those memories is so smooth and painless, due to the ultra-smooth transition between each chord. Nothing else in the world conjures up emotions like this, it is so unbelievably powerful. 

I apologise for the rushed, ranty nature of this post, but I had to put it into words. This piece of music just got a thousand times more beautiful, now that I fully understand it. I don’t think there’s anything that sounds better than this. Brian Eno, you are my hero for creating this. At this point, I am totally speechless, so sit back and enjoy the greatest piece of music ever created by a human being.