So Close, Yet So Far (From Paradise)

Persistance often pays off. Case in point the "Harum Scarum" soundtrack LP. On side A you are "treated" to three straight "two star" songs, "Harem Holiday", "My Desert Serenade" and "Go East, Young Man (maybe 2 1/2 stars for this one) and then you are put to sleep by two very poor ballads, "Mirage" and "Kismet". Now you wake up a little later and decide side two has to be better. Halfway through the first song, "Shake That Tambourine", you start to hit eject, but you decide to keep on listening. "Hey Little Girl" is slightly better, but you notice Elvis is not into it at all. Next comes "Golden Coins" and you think "Uh-Oh!". It is getting worse, not better. You are just about to turn it off when you hear the the beautiful and intriguing "So Close, Yet So Far". On this song it all works. Elvis sings it with passion, the "Middle Eastern/Asian" music doesn't sound phony and for three minute you are thoroughly entertained. A little hokey in the movie, but this song could have been a hit. They should have released this song as 45 with "Tell Me Why" on the flip-side and left the rest of the LP unavailable.

I think this is the most overrated song in the Elvis catalog. Because the releases were so dismal around this time, this very average song seems to have gained unwarranted status. Listen to it. Its nothing more than an average ballad with some of the worst production work I have heard on an Elvis record. He seems to be in another apartment while the band is in another. The drums are so muffled they sound like a toy drum kit. Maybe its better than the rest of the soundtrack but not by much.

Well I dont like it...because I love it ! For me it is one of the top 100 Elvis songs,because of its emotional feeling !!

The original LP is one of the worst sound productions of any album from Elvis. Luckily that changed with the DF release a few years back. The DF release brought new life to these recordings. Still, it doesn't help many of the songs too much. Still, this song is at least above average and I think Elvis sings it well with some real emotion to it. Personally I have more sympathy for Wisdom Of The Ages and Animal Instinct, not included in the movie. And I like Shake, That Tambourine and Hey Little Girl also. Even though they are not "classics" among the soundtrack recordings over the years. There are worse out there!

Probably the best song from the movie but not the LP. Really just an average movie ballad. Every movie had one of these. Awful production as noted. The best song(s) on the album is either of the 2 bonus songs. Take your pick.

My only complaint, is that, this song, is too short in playing time. But, other than that, the song is a real good. Elvis is amazing. He puts such "emotion and feeling" into this song, and I love it !

If RCA were to overdub this song with a new instrumental track, behind Elvis Presley's amazing vocals, and extend the length of the song, and feature the song in a new current movie (maybe a romantic comedy) along with the movie soundtrack CD, etc. I believe this song would get some positive attention.

I think this song, if anything, is underrated. Hidden deep within the soundtrack to one of Elvis' absolutely worst, most insufferable movies, this song stands WAY out above the others. Elvis voice was in great form throughout the whole mostly-awful soundtrack, but he particularly knocked this track out of the park. I've made this statement before, but there is something timeless about a lot of the soundtrack songs. This certainly doesn't fit with anything else going on in 1965--which may have been a very bad, even embarrassing situation back in the 60s, when Elvis was not keeping up with the Beatles or Dylan, etc--but today we're left with more than a handful of weird but sometimes great songs that do not sound dated. Maybe because they already seemed dated at the time (compared to the innovations and creativity in the 60s) but now to me, they sound like they could have come from anywhere, any time period. And this particular track has a great insistent beat, creating a feeling of trudging through the desert, over long distances of space and time to be close to the object of affection or maybe even obsession. Elvis sings this with a lot of drama too. I know it is not a true classic, but I'll take it!

Rubbish movie, rubbish LP and rubbish song. Harum Scarum, what a title for a film, more at home as a Laurel and Hardy or a Charlie Chaplin short, silent film title. Actually, this may have been better without the sound! That's another fine mess the Colonel got me into! Having said that, these films were big earners for Elvis (and still are) as he got a straight fee plus % of takings and I can understand the route he went. could he rely on Rock and Roll in the mid 60's? It was outdated compared to the pop sensation of the Beatles etc. What else could he have done? would a stage career been appropriate at the time, very little success was had with studio recordings during this period. Maybe a magic move by the Colonel, even if 45+ odd years later we hate this part of the Elvis legacy...

Average ballad and for me not the best track on the Harum Scarum soundtrack. I generally like this album but this track does not stand out anymore than any other song on this release.

Why can´t anybody remix these songs with music and song on Harum Scarum together good ?

Definitely not rubbish but could have been developed further with a bit of ingenuity. I like the ballads on this soundtrack with their Middle Eastern feel and this one builds up to a mini grandstand ending. I always say of this soundtrack and one or 2 others that the addition of echo really enhances the impact, and thats how I like listening to them.

Not one off his best ballads, but still worth a listen as I've done a lot since it is on one off the first LP's I bought, Mahalo from Elvis.

I've always liked this ballad and Elvis' rendition of it was splendid. I rate this song 4 stars. The other fifteen songs that Elvis recorded that were written or co-written by Joy Byers were "Baby, If You'll Give Me All Of Your Love", "C'mon Everybody", "Goin' Home", "Hard Knocks", "Hey, Hey, Hey", "Hey Little Girl", "It Hurts Me", "I've Got To Find My Baby", "Let Yourself Go", "Please Don't Stop Loving Me", "She's A Machine", "Stop, Look And Listen", "The Meanest Girl In Town", "There Ain't Nothing Like A Song" and "There's A Brand New Day On The Horizon".

Tolerable at best. A ballad, period. From a rather crappy movie; as a matter of fact, the worst movie he ever made. Talk about tacky.

Not the worst song on the lp, but that doesn't mean that much. It's a mediocre composition, sung without real engagement and released in an awful mix. It's not good.

Definitely the best track on the album and a song I love to listen to. The FTD release improved the sound dramatically. The movie is as everyone states woeful but made worse when most versions of the movie I’ve seen have this beauty of a song cut from it...Why do that?

This is one of my favorite songs.

I liked it then. I still enjoy it today. It's one of my favorite "movie years" songs. 4 stars.

I could have copied my own comments from eight years back. But, in the end that's the essense of Elvis, overall. When he felt it, the outcome caught one's ear. As it did back then! You could easily hear when Elvis felt something in those songs he was somehow contracted to sing! This is one of them! That's why we, I and most Elvis fans like it! (I Guess!)

The mid 60's were his low point artistically. It's a shame because the settings of some of these movies could have inspired interesting musical fusions. Quality, different sounding music could have been recorded. However no one seemed to care, not even Elvis. The "Nashville Sound" musicians were again used but by now they had also lost their spark. They even failed to play some decent country music for "Kissin' Cousins" two years before. As for the production values, they couldn't be much worse. Gone were the days when Bill Porter captured the magic at the same Studio B in the early 60's! His amazing voice salvaged some of the songs and "So Close, Yet So Far" is one of them. 3 stars

one of his nicest movie ballads. He really made the best of it

A good song and performance in midst of the ‘lazy years’ of middling motion pictures.