18
Apart from such specific references, there is much in Silence that clearly influenced Eno: the
fascination with chance operations, which Eno was to incorporate in his deck of oracle cards,
the Oblique Strategies, in the mid-1970s (see Chapter 4), the Zen anecdotes and the excur-
sions into Eastern philosophy, the mildly, jocosely irreverent attitude towards canonical prin-
ciples of Western art music, with regard to both musical structure and social setting, the un-
conventional typography and free mix of musical and written media (such as in Cage's "45'
for a Speaker"), the idea of "Composition as Process" (another chapter title), and the ever-
repeated axiom that all sounds have the potential for being experienced as music. Silence
served Eno, like countless young artists and musicians of the last few decades, as a somewhat
ad-hoc, yet more or less comprehensive survey of major developments in experimental music
in the early and mid-twentieth century.
Eno has acknowledged Cage's influence on several occasions. The first published reference to
Cage is in a 1972 interview. Eno was discussing the tape-delay technique he had recently been
exploring with Robert Fripp, the results of which can be heard on their 1973 album No Pussy-
footing. Eno was aware that Terry Riley had just gone public with a similar delay system.
Then he added (if we are to accept this as a literal quotation): "Actually, soon afterwards I
found out that John Cage had discovered the same things years ago. But he was a creep, and
anyway he didn't know how to use it!"
20
By 1977, Eno no longer had to adopt the aggressive
attitude of the enfant terrible feeling his oats: "`Art is a net,' Cage said. Years later I read
Morse Peckham. He said, `Art is safe.' I realized that's what Cage meant. You're creating a
false world where you can afford to make mistakes."
21
In 1980, after again acknowledging Cage's influence on the development of his ideas, Eno
revealed that he had sent Cage a score of his around 1966, and that he had received in return
"like a circular, I guess, [that] he sends out to the thousands of people a week who send him
scores, and it said, `thank you very much for the score. It has been duly filed and appreciated,'
or something of that type." Eno added, with a self-deprecatory laugh, "I was very pleased to
get this accolade from John Cage."
22
More revealing still are comments Eno made in a 1981 interview. Calling Cage "the most
influential theorist" he had had at a certain point in his life, "a completely liberating factor,"
Eno goes on to say that Cage "reintroduced the notion of spirituality into the making of mu-
sic." Much musical composition in the first half of the twentieth century struck Eno as being a
sterile enterprise: "The history of music was seen as the breakdown of the old tonal system
and the move into chromaticism and the tone row, and everything was being discussed in
these terms." The formal and technical agenda had replaced or submerged aesthetic concerns,
and to be a good composer, what you had to do was understand what had happened on a for-
mal level and then break certain of those rules. Now clearly, this has never been what good
music was about. In fact, the quality that one seeks is the spiritual quality, which incidentally
sometimes breaks the rules. But it's incidental, you know? It sometimes keeps those rules as
well. So what Cage did that was so important was to say, "Look, when you make music you
are acting as a philosopher. You can either do that consciously or you can do it unconsciously,
but you're doing it." To be reminded of that was the most important thing. For me it wasn't a
20
Richard Williams, "Crimso Meets Eno!," Melody Maker 47 (4 Nov. 1972), 65.
21
Frank Rose, "Four Conversations with Brian Eno," Village Voice 22 (28 Mar. 1977), 69.
22
Amirkhanian, "Eno at KPFA," 7.