We're So Close — Carly Simon

JUL 01 1979 · 12:00

We're So Close — Carly Simon (1979) Era: Late Singer-Songwriter Era / Pre-MTV Promo Clip Period (1979) - Transitional moment between album-era promotional films and the imminent dawn of music video as a broadcast medium; produced for Elektra Records in support of the Spy LP. Exceptionally high for historical preservation. As the 96th video aired on MTV on its launch day, this clip is a primary document of the transition from album-era promo film to broadcast music video culture. Its single-take, no-edit format and near-total absence of production artifice provide a stark stylistic counterpoint to the constructed spectacles that would define the MTV aesthetic within two years. The song's emotional depth, critical pedigree, and autobiographical origins make this a culturally significant artifact warranting Tier 1 preservation status. Context: Released in June 1979 as a track on Carly Simon's eighth studio album Spy (Elektra Records), 'We're So Close' is a first-person meditation on emotional estrangement within an intimate relationship, written by Simon about the disintegration of her marriage to James Taylor. The album was produced by Arif Mardin and recorded at Atlantic Studios, NYC, deploying an unusually sophisticated jazz-pop ensemble including Steve Gadd, David Sanborn, the Brecker Brothers, and Will Lee — positioning Simon at the crossroads of AOR, adult contemporary, and New York jazz-soul. The promotional clip, though made in 1979, reached its widest audience as one of the 116 videos aired on MTV's inaugural broadcast day of August 1, 1981 — a historically significant detail that ties this intimate, pre-MTV-era film to the birth of the music video industry as a cultural institution. Rolling Stone singled out 'We're So Close' as 'the record's gem,' and Simon herself described it as perhaps the saddest song she ever wrote. Director notes: The video was confirmed as the 96th clip to air on MTV on its launch day, August 1, 1981, making it one of a small cohort of pre-MTV promo films that entered the early MTV rotation. It was made to support the Spy album (Elektra Records, released June 1979, produced by Arif Mardin, recorded at Atlantic Studios, NYC). The song was written by Carly Simon and drawn from her deteriorating marriage to James Taylor; Simon herself called it 'the saddest song I've ever written.' The near-zero motion and single-take format suggest a minimal budget promotional shoot standard for the era, predating the concept-video productions that would define the MTV era from 1981 onward. No director is credited on IMDB, the official Carly Simon website, Wikipedia's Spy album entry, or in archived music press. The Through the Shattered Lens archive explicitly marks the director as unknown ('????').