Calvin Harris Released One Of The Best Songs Ever, "Feel So Close", Ten Years Ago Today

Let’s cut right to the chase here. If you don’t at the bare minimum start to tap your foot when the first chords of “Feel So Close” begin you’re either A) dead, or as Hurricane Peter McNeely so famously put it - 

B) 

This is one of the best songs ever made. Period.

Hardos will say it sucks because it’s EDM, but they’ll also be the ones on a dance floor at the bar, wedding, or on the boat leading the rest of the party in a double clap. It's ok though. This is a no judgement zone.

And make no mistake about it, very few songs in history play as well as “Feel So Close” does with a good old double-clap.

To think this song came out ten years ago is fucked up. It's cliche as hell to ask, but where the hell does time go? 

What's even crazier to think, is that when Calvin Harris released this song, he was still fighting for his life with his record label.

Feel so close is 10 years old today!

I like remembering how it came about, cos at the time I was well confused about what to do with my life / career.

At the end of summer 2010 I had played my last gig (Creamfields) with my ‘band’ and had done enough ‘DJ set’ gigs to know that I wanted to change the way my music was presented. I needed to stop singing every song as I had all these ideas for female singers and my falsetto just wasn’t going to cut it 😵‍💫

So I began producing with a new purpose, excited I could give my songs to real singers and finally move closer to the role I had always dreamt of in music (weird dude in background who never speaks).

After about 3 months of studio, I visited my record label Columbia and played them Awooga, Bounce and another ok song with a feature that ended up not coming out. The response from the label was overwhelmingly lukewarm; I came out of the meeting wondering if I had made the right decision in changing my path. That’s putting it lightly actually I was gutted and my head was spinning, I thought I’d absolutely fucked it. So immediately I headed back to my studio room feeling properly sad but also enough ‘fuck it I’ll show em I’ll sing on one then, and it’ll be class’ and made Feel So Close in a few hours. I had discovered when I was much younger that there is something so comforting about a piano, a bass guitar and a vocal and very little else, and this was exactly the sort of musical hug I needed.

It came out August 19th 2011 and reached number *2* in the UK, my second in a run of too many number 2s. As was familiar to me, most other countries didn’t pay any attention to it at all. Absolutely fine. Number 2 in UK was still enough to keep me in a record deal, which at the time was my top priority, my years in dead end jobs were still very fresh in my head.

Early the following year American radio stations started playing it and it ended up as my first solo top 10 record there. It got absolutely rinsed. What a time. It’s been responsible for some absolute scenes at my gigs over the years, and for that I am so thankful.

Also a lot of folk still think the fella on the cover with the horse sings the song 🤣

Like he said, there's real beauty in something so simple as a bass guitar, keyboard, and synth. That's it. 

My favorite thing about this song is that it's an instant mood changer. For one, its in G Major (one of the "happy keys"). But it's also just one of those songs that can come on and instantly put you in a better mood either through directly changing the energy, or by taking you back to a time and place linked in your brain to the song. Music is special in that it's able to do that.

All-time song from one of the most household names in popular music in the world today. 

Happy 10th birthday. 

p.s. - it's really annoying how easy he makes everything look