Writer's Commentary: Too Close

On Post: Too Close

Date: January 20, 2013

Find it here 

I love the tension of the song, that there is a place where you can be so connected to someone that love becomes impossible. I’m not sure exactly how Clare (or whoever wrote the song) meant it; if it was just that the protagonist knows too much about the person he is singing to/about to love them in good conscience or it was something more complicated.

Obviously, here I embraced a more complicated answer. My first reaction to the song was the idea of someone who’s essentially TOO in love with the other person to be in relationship with them. It’s not “I’m too close to love you,” but rather, “I’m too close to love you in any way but from afar.” The protagonist here gets he can never be objective about his friend and that it will doom whatever romantic relationship they may try. He’ll either be forever to grateful to be a partner or he’ll see her as human eventually and it will crush him.

It is, admittedly, a very teen way of looking at love, of that idea of your crush being perfect, but I think we’ll all had those people in our lives who did that to us. Here, the difference is, our protagonist has enough insight to know that it is happening.

It also made it a natural to be reprinted as part of the "Will They or Won't They" prompt that's running elsewhere on the site as it is, in some ways, a spiritual father to that.​

Again, like I explained with Sick Cycle Carousel earlier, I think it would really come together to see it performed. Two talented types could really sell the mutual heartbreak and confusion that comes with being so close to what you want and realizing that even in that moment, it can never really be.