(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
The Carpenters - "(They Long to Be) Close to You"
Hit Number 1: July 25, 1970
Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks
Burt Bacharach was a master at creating soft love songs. If you ever needed something soft and sweet; something that would put your kids to sleep at night, he was your guy. He's appeared in here twice before with Herb Alpert's "This Guy's in Love With You" and B.J. Thomas' "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head". Neither of those are personal favorites of mine, but I respected the craft that was put into them, and they were songs that proved to be nice listens. It turns out that Alpert and Bacharach would collab again, but instead that collab became a hit for a brother-and-sister musical duo, the Carpenters.
Bacharach wrote "Close to You" back in 1963 and had written it for Richard Chamberlain, a teen idol at the time who starred as the title character in Dr. Kildare. Chamberlain was unable to score a hit with it, and it was instead the other side of the single that became a hit, albeit a minor one. (The song, "Blue Guitar", made it to #42 on the Hot 100. It's a 4. Chamberlain's highest-charting single is the Theme from Dr. Kildare, "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight". That one is a 3.) Surprisingly, bigger names took a shot at "Close to You", but they still couldn't make a hit out of it. Those names included artists like Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield. Even Alpert recorded the song, but he was dissatisfied with the way his recording sounded and it was never released.
At this point. Bacharach might have assumed that the song was a bust, and if artists like Warwick and Springfield couldn't do anything with it, likely no one could. That was until the brother-and-sister duo, who had recently signed with Alpert's A&M Records, seemed like a good fit to Alpert for the song. The Carpenters had just gotten their first taste of chart success with a cover of the Beatles song "Ticket to Ride". (While it did chart, their version stalled out at #54. It's a 3. The Beatles' original already appeared in this blog as a #1 hit) Alpert thought that the Carpenters' style, combined with Karen Carpenter's smooth-as-silk voice, would yield a hit. Their version of "Close to You" became a bigger hit than anyone could imagine. It shot up to the #1 spot on the Hot 100, and was ranked as the second-biggest record of 1970 by Billboard, only behind the Simon & Garfunkel gem "Bridge Over Troubled Water".
While I am a little surprised on how big the song became, I'm not surprised that it was a hit to begin with. The best thing about the song, which is possibly the best thing about any Carpenters song, is Karen's voice. That voice is my second-favorite voice by a female singer, only behind Heart's Ann Wilson. (Heart will eventually appear in this blog, in case you were wondering) There's something that's so mesmerizing, and so relaxing about her voice. The way I described it earlier, smooth-as-silk, is the best way I can think of to describe it. It's amazing. But the instrumentation and the harmonies with her brother Richard are good too. The soft piano melodies are nice, and the trumpet played by Chuck Findley grabs your attention without being obnoxious.
One problem I have though are the words. The lyrics of "Close to You" are corny, and with the things that Karen says about this boy you'd think that his birth would have cured cancer or something. The line "On the day that you were born the angels got together and decided to create a dream come true" is so easy to mock, it would be hard for most people to get through that without laughing. In fact, the boy in this song is held up at such a high position by the narrator, she makes him sound like God himself. You can get past the lyrics though when you have great craftsmanship. It's not my idea of a masterpiece, but it's still a nice listen and a well-crafted song. I respect craft.
GRADE: 7/10
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