Coming Up Close
"Coming Up Close" is a song by American band 'Til Tuesday, which was released in 1986 as the second and final single from their second studio album "Welcome Home". The song was written by Aimee Mann and produced by Rhett Davies. "Coming Up Close" peaked at No. 59 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. Background. "Coming Up Close" was one of the earliest songs Mann wrote using an acoustic guitar rather than a bass guitar. Mann wrote the song during the time the band were on tour as the opening act for Hall & Oates in March–April  1985. 'Til Tuesday had wanted "Coming Up Close" to be the first single from "Welcome Home", rather than "What About Love". Mann told "The Atlanta Constitution" in 1986, "I really love 'Coming Up Close' and we did want it to be the first single. But we sort of realized that 'What About Love' was more immediate." The album and its two singles achieved modest commercial success in the United States, but did not live up to the expectations of Epic Records or the band. Mann told "Cash Box" in 1989: "'Coming Up Close' made people nervous 'cause there were no  other songs like it on the charts; now there are. We could've been groundbreakers, I think, if "Welcome Home" had gotten the attention it deserved." Music video. The song's music video was directed by Bob McKinnon and produced by McKinnon and Siegel. It received heavy rotation on MTV. Critical reception. On its release, "Billboard" described "Coming Up Close" as a "nostalgic rock song" and "contemplative follow-up" to "What About Love" which "incorporates elements of both country and western". "Cash Box" considered the song to be a "country-flavored and richly textured mid-tempo track" which has "an  airy, evocative ambience that yields to a riveting chorus". They praised Mann's vocal for being "earnest", "charming" and "spellbinding". Bill Nowak of "The Sheboygan Press" gave the song a three and a half star rating out of four and described it as a "very fine song" which should put the band "back on track" commercially. In a review of "Welcome Home", Jim Sullivan of "The Boston Globe" praised "Coming Up Close" as "the best song the wispy-voiced Mann has written". He added, "A gentle, countryish song, it has a catchy, calming lilt and a feeling of resonant hope ." Bill Hendersen of "The Orlando Sentinel" commented: "On songs like 'Coming Up Close' and 'Angels Never Call,' Mann has laid her influences and vulnerabilities on the table for everyone to see. Sure, the songs contain the all-important modern dance rhythms, but they also carry subtle country undertones that give them unusual twists." L. Kent Wolgamott of the "Lincoln Journal Star" considered "Coming Up Close" to be a "direct personal song, something most new bands avoid like the plague". Richard Thompson of the "Santa Cruz Sentinel" considered the "haunting" song to be "about a love affair that never takes off . In a retrospective review of the song, Stewart Mason of AllMusic noted the detail-filled lyrics" that "sound like a Raymond Carver story set to music", and the "haunting hints of emotions" which are "resolved in an equally elliptical but much more direct and yearning chorus". Personnel. 'Til Tuesday Production