Carpenters: Close To You album, 1970, Karen Carpenter, Richard Carpenter

Our debut single “Ticket To Ride” stayed on the charts for several months and ultimately peaked at No.54. This showed some promise for us, as most singles released never see the charts, but did not move many “Offering” albums. Nevertheless, Herb continued to “keep the faith” and we started recording a second album, the first two tracks recorded being “Love Is Surrender” and “I’ll Never Fall In Love Again”. This was before “Close To You” was brought to our attention.

In late 1969 Burt Bacharach heard our version of “Ticket To Ride”. This led to our being asked by Burt to open a benefit show he would be doing on February 24, 1970, and performing a medley of his songs I would arrange. Herb brought an obscure Bacharach/David song to my attention during this time entitled “They Long To Be Close To You” (I had presumptuously taken it upon myself to shorten the title.) I put together my arrangement but felt it didn’t quite fit the medley. Herb felt strongly we should include it in the new album. “Close To You” was released on May 15, 1970 and within six weeks was No.1. The “Close To You” album also contains “We’ve Only Just Begun”. Written by Roger Nichols and Paul Williams for a “soft sell” TV bank commercial, “Begun” caught my ear after seeing the commercial a few times. It became our third single (second gold) and ultimately our signature song. Also featured in this album are “Help” (which was slated to be our second single until “Close To You” came along) and four songs John Bettis and I wrote while still in college: “Crescent Noon”, “Mr. Guder”, “Maybe It’s You” and “Another Song”. Others I feel are particularly strong are “Baby It’s You” & “Reason To Believe”.

A perfect example of pretentious, wacky 60s musical abandon, it is complete with a recitative (lifted from Handel) and extended solo backside. Karen’s and my multi-tracked vocal break, which precedes the Borodin-inspired penultimate section, however, is still thrilling to listen to.