James Taylor & Carly Simon — Close Your Eyes

JUL 01 1977 · 12:00

James Taylor & Carly Simon — Close Your Eyes (1977) Era: Singer-Songwriter Intimacy Era (1977) - Mid-to-late 1970s California/New England folk-pop at its most unguarded; acoustic home performance filmed at the peak of the Taylor-Simon marriage, reflecting the confessional domesticity that defined soft-rock culture of the period. Exceptionally high. This is a rare, unmediated home document of two major figures of 1970s American popular music performing together in a private domestic setting, with no commercial framing or production intervention. Its authenticity, intimacy, and historical specificity — a confirmed 1977 date, a confirmed location, a confirmed relational context — make it a singular primary source for scholars of the period. The low technical production quality is itself culturally meaningful, underscoring the singer-songwriter ethos of sincerity over spectacle. Context: Filmed in 1977 at the Taylor-Simon home on Martha's Vineyard, this performance document captures one of the defining couples of 1970s American popular music at their most private. James Taylor had written 'You Can Close Your Eyes' in 1970, originally released on his 1971 album Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, and had long performed it with female vocal partners. The footage represents the singer-songwriter movement's ethos of authenticity and emotional transparency applied to the domestic sphere — a home, not a stage, as the site of musical meaning. The warm, low-fi visual quality reinforces the lullaby intimacy of the song itself, and the recording stands as an unrepeatable document of a specific domestic and cultural moment in late-1970s American soft rock. Director notes: Multiple sources confirm the footage was filmed at the artists' home on Martha's Vineyard in 1977. The production bears no hallmarks of a commissioned music video: no credits, no formal framing convention, no post-production, and no promotional release context have been documented. It circulates online as archival home footage. No director, cameraman, or production company has been credited in any indexed source.