Billboard #1 Hits: #239: “{They Long To Be} Close To You”- The Carpenters- July 25, 1970. #1 for 4 weeks.

• Single: “{They Long To Be} Close To You- The Carpenters
• Company- A&M
• Genre: Pop
• Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David
• Time: 3:40
• B-side:” I Kept On Loving You”
• Album- Close To You
• Grade: A-
• Peaked at #1 17 weeks in the Billboard Hot 100.

Timing. The timing was right for The Carpenters. I don’t think they would have been as popular if they had come out a few years earlier in the late 60’s- but the 70’s brought on softer sounds as you are seeing in just the #1 hits so far in 1970. This was not only their first of three #1 hits- but their first hit. Written by Bacharach and David back in the early 1960’s it was first recorded by Richard Chamberlain in 1963. Dionne Warwick the greatest of all Bacharach-David interpreters released it as a b-side in the mid 60’s. Who plays drums on The Carpenters #1 version of the song? Our old friend Hal Blaine.