'Close (to the edit)' is a song - a
piece of music, sorry - by
The Art of Noise, released as a single in 1984 and also appearing on their debut album '
(Who's Afraid of) The Art of Noise'. It remains their most famous and influential work. As with the rest of the album its big gimmick was
sampling, courtest of the ultra-expensive,
8-bit Fairlight CMI. In 1984 its combination of voice effects and a
12-bar blues sounded like the
Alien Future of Music, although it's worth noting that the concept of playing a tune with recorded snippets of sound had been pre-empted in previous decades by tape manipulation and electronic effects, notably by
White Noise and the
BBC Radiophonics Workshop, and even the
Kenny Everett Video Show.
Musically, 'Close (to the edit)' combines a sampled double bass playing a blues scale, a sampled voice saying 'dum', some 'Krypton Factor'-esque orchestra stabs (Trevor Horn's trademark and gift to the world), the sound of a car starting up, and several thousand pounds worth of early-80s synthesisers. As a sample-based dance track it predated Paul Hardcastle's 19 by a year; the odd, broken-backed drum loop has subsequently attained a certain classic status, whilst the 'Hey!' sample was used by The Prodigy for their hit single Firestarter.
"Close (to the edit)"
by
The Art of Noise
-
(a car starting)
Hey!
!yeH
!yeHHey!
(verse / chorus)
Dum,
dum,
du-dum
dum dum dum
dum
Dum,
dum,
dum
tra-la-la
Dum,
dum,
du-dum
dum dum dum
dum
dum dum dum
Dum,
dum,
dum
tra-la
tra-la
la-la-la
(instrumental section)
(verse / chorus)
Dum,
dum,
du-dum
dum dum dum
dum
Dum,
dum,
dum
tra-la-la
Dum,
dum,
du-dum
dum dum dum
dum
dum dum dum
Dum,
dum,
dum
tra-la
tra-la
la-la-la
(instrumental section)
Clo-clo-clo-close
tothe-tothe-tothe edge
tothe-tothe-tothe-tothe edge
(instrumental section)
To be in England in the summertime (Hey!)
with my love (Hey! !yeH)
close to the edge
Hey!
Hey!
!yeH
Hey!
Close
Close
Close to the edge
Hey!
!yeH
!yeH
Hey!