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Rare televised appearance of the Carpenters performing Burt Bacharach's (They Long To Be) Close To You in 1970 TV broadcast. Why are we so fascinated by the sad life and even sadder death of Karen Carpenter? What is it about her story that resonates so strongly? I suppose a lot of it has to do with the timelessness of her music. As long as there are elevators, or easy-listening stations, or lovers, the music of the Carpenters will endure. Karen and Richard Carpenter’s early 1970s hit parade will be with us forever, along with the equally perfect pop of contemporaries Abba and the Bee Gees. Then there is the not insubstantial matter of Karen Carpenter’s voice, an instrument as achingly sad and pure and wise as any in popular music, at once the voice of experience and naiveté. With a voice that was shattering in its hushed intimacy, she gleaned every last bit of melancholy and emotion from the words she delivered so inimitably. Even now, more than three decades after her death, it’s hard to get a fix on Karen Carpenter. She remains a fascinating aggregation of contradictions. She was an old soul who effortlessly conveyed sophisticated and profound emotions while barely out of her teens as well as en emotionally stunted woman-child who loved Disney and stuffed animals and lived with her parents till the age of 26, even after becoming an international pop star. Carpenter was a brash, good-humored tomboy who was seemingly never happier than when seated comfortably behind a drum set, bashing the shit out of her kit with the enthusiasm of her hero, Buddy Rich. But she was also a girly girl who died in no small part as a result of conforming to society’s conception of femininity, which puts an enormous premium on thinness at the expense of health. I suspect we are also endlessly fascinated by Karen Carpenter because she’s such an anomaly. When pop icons die young, it’s generally a result of delirious excess, of an abundance of everything: sex, drugs, food, liquor, and all-around bad behavior. With Karen Carpenter, the opposite was true: she perished from a terrible, fatal absence not just of food and body mass and pounds but also less tangible qualities, like a mother’s love or a loving partner’s support. (Source: Nathan Rabin) (They Long To Be) Close To You is composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, recorded by Carpenters in 1971 and lip-synched on live television appearance. History: “(They Long To Be) Close To You” was recorded three different times, with the original piano part recorded by ‘Wrecking Crew’ sessionist Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn on bass, and Karen on drums. Richard didn’t feel they had the arrangement quite where it needed to be, so by the third time, Richard was on piano, studio sessionist Hal Blaine on drums and of course Joe on bass. Because Richard and Hal had a tendency to rush the tempo a bit, Hal suggested that they use a “click track”, which was basically an electronic signal or “click” that accompanied the musicians, allowing them to follow a tempo map. Recorded at 88.5 beats-per-minute, the final ‘track’ for “(They Long To Be) Close To You)” was recorded, noting a total of 47 takes! – Prior to the release of the “Close To You” album, the single “(They Long To Be) Close To You” was released in April of 1970 and made it to #1 on Billboard’s Top-100 within two months, where it remained for four weeks, initially selling two million copies.
