So Close

Genre: Disney

Artist: Music and Lyrics by Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz

Album: Enchanted

Whenever I hear this song, it invokes the feeling of love and loneliness all at once inside me. Some of the phrases of the song are able to capture what, to me, love feels like. "All the world is gone..." as if nobody else exists but you and the one you love. "When I'm with you, so close to feeling alive!" There is that feeling of completeness, the emptiness inside being filled.

But immediately, the song plunges into the feeling of loneliness. "Romantic dreams must die," the song says. "All that I want is to hold you so close...how can I face the faceless days if I should lose you now? We're so close to reaching that famous happy end, almost believing this one's not pretend. Let's go on dreaming, though we know are! So close! So close, and still so far."

Although this song can be very sad in nature, it is one of my absolute favorites. It can be taken at so many levels. Two people in love with each other find it hard to be separated for a long period of time. There is the situation, as Queen Narissa says shortly after this song, "To never be with the one you love..." No matter the situation, this song evokes in me the wonderful feeling of being in love and almost being in an entirely separate world, and then how lonely reality seems when it's time to come back. This song is a masterpiece!