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CLOSER AS THE WIND BEGINS TO BLOW CLOSER AS THE SPELL BEGINS TO GROW
REACH OUT LIKE A WAVE TOWARDS THE SAND ONE MORE STEP AND
TOUCH ME TAKE MY HAND IN CASE YOU FALL HOLD ME AFTER ALL
OUR LOVE KNOWS THE WAY AND A SINGLE HEART’S A LONELY PAWN BUT TWO GO ON MUCH
SURER AS THE DAYS GO PAST BOLDER FEELING SAFE AT LAST AND
CLOSER FOR THE WHOLE, WIDE WORLD TO SEE!
STRONGER AS THE SKY BEGINS TO CLEAR LOUDER NOW THERE’S NOTHING LEFT TO FEAR
MOVING AS WE FEEL THE MAGIC STIR SPINNING EVER
CLOSER AS WE START THE UPHILL CLIMB KNOWING THAT IN TIME
OUR LOVE FINDS THE WAY AND OUR SINGLE HEARTS ONCE ALL ALONE HAVE FOUND THEY'VE GROWN MUCH
SURER AS THE YEARS GO PAST BOLDER FEELING FREE AT LAST AND
CLOSER FOR THE WHOLE, WIDE WORLD TO SEE!
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CLOSER: On Thin Ice
After listening to this recording, an old friend asked me if it was about gay marriage rights, or maybe a gay wedding song. A bit surprised, I said it wasn't and could only wish it had been written in support of such a personal and timely battle. Then again, who writes wedding songs?
The truth is that sometime late in 1980 I was asked to write a song for a TV movie. The movie was "Thin Ice," starring Kate Jackson and the song was to be sung by Jane Olivor. Being a prolific 20-something with two musicals heading to Broadway (another story), I didn't think it up my alley, but I had always wanted to do a song for a film, so I gave it a shot.
"Closer" was motivated in part by Jane Olivor's limited but dramatic vocal range and my classical notion of writing a liebestraum of sorts to accompany the predictable montage scene during which it would surely be sung. And it couldn't be a theatre song, so I wrote the lyric myself.
What I ended up with was a pop song with ambitions of lieder and the song was rejected for being "too good" (honest) -- or perhaps just too difficult. I was never sure. But ironically, by then the song had become deeply personal for me and I lovingly dedicated it to my partner at the time. No, Jane Olivor never sang it, nor anyone else. I tucked it away with other bits of young writing and forged ahead into my dark future of musicals and madness.
A few weeks ago, the song found its way to the gifted actor/writer/singer Grant James Varjas. His and Preston Clarke's alternative rock interpretation is one I never imagined; haunting and nuanced, but far from the lush Hollywood arrangement I had expected in 1980. Yet in its soulful vocal, changing rhythms and the simple plinks of a toy piano I am somehow reminded of my own younger voice and gratefully embrace a lost little song that was, after all, too good for a TV movie.
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© Roger Anderson. racomp@aol.com for more info.