At the time, there was a lot going on in the world that I wanted to forget. Savan gets very overwhelmed with what's happening particularly in America, and I think we all wanted to forget that and just write something a bit silly. It was so nice to just go back to just writing a song about a turbulent, probably doomed relationship – someone to forget the world with.
—Goulding on the inspiration behind the song.[ 3]
Goulding told Billboard that the song came about when she and co-writer Savan Kotecha were in a Los Angeles studio where they came up with the guitar melody and Goulding sang what would become the first line of the pre-chorus, "don't let me down", which they decided to keep in the song. Goulding, feeling that the song was "missing something", eventually sent it to Diplo who sent his version back to her within a short amount of time. Diplo suggested adding Swae Lee as a featured guest vocalist.[ 3]
The song is recorded in the key of E major with a tempo of 72 beats per minute in common time . The song follows a chord progression of E–C♯ m7–G♯ –A, and the vocals span from E3 to C♯ 5 .[ 4]
The music video for "Close to Me", directed by Diane Martel ,[ 5] was filmed in Budapest , Hungary, and premiered on 14 November 2018.[ 6]
Goulding wiped her social media accounts and began promoting the track on 22 October 2018, first sharing a cartoon image of hers, Diplo and Swae Lee's arms locked in a triangle, displaying their tattoos against a cheetah print background, captioning it "CLOSE TO ME".[ 1] She then later confirmed this would be the title, and along with posting an audio clip of the track,[ 7] announced the release date and time.[ 8]
In April 2019, Goulding released another version of the song featuring Korean girl group Red Velvet to replace Swae Lee's verse in the song.
Goulding performed an acoustic version of the song during On Air with Ryan Seacrest on 16 November 2018.[ 9] She later performed the song during BBC Radio 1 's Live Lounge Month on 28 November.[ 10] Her first televised performance of the song was on the final of The X Factor on 2 December.[ 11]
"Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix)" Language Released 5 April 2019 (2019-04-05 ) Length 3 :09 Label
Songwriter(s)
Ellie Goulding
Ilya Salmanzadeh
Peter Svensson
Wooyoung Jang[ 92]
Wendy
Yeri[ 92]
Sungsu Min[ 92]
Eugene Kwon[ 92]
Min-Kyu Lee[ 92]
Lee Seu Ran[ 92]
Savan Kotecha
Thomas Wesley Pentz
Producer(s)
Ilya
Diplo
Alvaro (add. )
Bas van Daalen (add. )
"Flux " (2019)
"Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) " (2019)
"Sixteen " (2019)
"Hold You Tight" (2019)
"Close to Me (Red Velvet Remix) " (2019)
"Hold You Tight" (2019)
"Sayonara" (2019)
"Close to Me " (2019)
"Zimzalabim " (2019)
On 5 April 2019, a remix was released which removes Swae Lee's verse and features Korean girl group Red Velvet , singing a verse and their own version of the chorus in Korean. Their chorus was written by Red Velvet's Wendy & Yeri .[ 92] It has won
a "Choice Electronic / Dance Song" award at the 2019 Teen Choice Awards . The remix appears as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of Goulding's fourth studio album Brightest Blue (2020).
Digital download[ 92] Title 1. "Close to Me" (Red Velvet Remix) 3:09
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^ Goulding, Ellie; Kotecha, Savan; Svensson, Peter; Salmanzadeh, Ilya; Pentz, Thomas Wesley; Brown, Khalif (2018-10-26). "Close to Me" . Musicnotes.com . Retrieved 2019-05-19 .
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