Widely regarded as one of the most creative musicians of his generation, Ju… Read Full Bio ↴Widely regarded as one of the most creative musicians of his generation, Julian Lloyd Webber has collaborated with an extraordinary array of musicians from Yehudi Menuhin, Lorin Maazel, Neville Marriner, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Georg Solti to Stephane Grappelli, Elton John and Cleo Laine.

Julian has made many outstanding recordings including his Brit-Award winning Elgar Concerto conducted by Yehudi Menuhin (chosen as the finest ever version by BBC Music Magazine) the Dvorak Concerto with Vaclav Neumann and the Czech Philharmonic, Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with the London Symphony under Maxim Shostakovich and a coupling of Britten's Cello Symphony and Walton's Concerto with Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which was described by Gramophone magazine as "beyond any rival". Julian has also recorded several highly successful CD's of short pieces for Universal Classics including Made In England, Cello Moods, and Cradle Song: "It would be difficult to find better performances of this kind of repertoire anywhere on records of today or yesterday" - Gramophone.

Julian has given more than fifty works their premiere recordings and has inspired new compositions for cello from composers as diverse as Malcolm Arnold and Joaquin Rodrigo to James MacMillan and Philip Glass. Recent concert performances have included three further works composed for Julian - Michael Nyman's Double Concerto for Cello and Saxophone on BBC Television, Gavin Bryars' Concerto in Suntory Hall, Tokyo and Philip Glass's Concerto at the Beijing International Festival. Julian's recording of the Glass concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic conducted by Gerard Schwarz was released on the Orange Mountain label in September 2004.

Julian’s most recent recording, Phantasia, is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera and features violinist, Sarah Chang. This is available on EMI and is the first of several planned recordings that Julian will be making for EMI Classics. His new EMI disc, Unexpected Songs, featuring 21 tracks, including collaborations with harpist Catrin Finch and singer Michael Ball will be released in June this year.
Julian Lloyd Webber plays the ‘Barjansky’ Stradivarius cello of c.1690.

www.julianlloydwebber.com

Close Every Door
Julian Lloyd Webber Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Joseph

Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Do what you want with me,
Hate me and laugh at me

Darken my daytime
And toture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world
Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
For I know I shall find
My own peace of mind
For I have been promised
A land of my own

Children

Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Joseph

Just give me a number
Instead of my name
Forget all about me
And let me decay
I do not matter,
I'm only one person
Destroy me completely
Then throw me away
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers lie
Far from this world

Joseph, Ensemble & Children

Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
For we know we shall find
Our own peace of mind

For we have been promised
A land of our own

Overall Meaning

The song Close Every Door is from the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. The song is sung by the lead character Joseph, who has been betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt. The lyrics convey Joseph's emotions of feeling isolated, alone, and abandoned by everyone he loves. He pleads that the world be hidden and the light be shut out and asks to be hated and laughed at. He doesn't ask whether he will live or die because he knows the answers are far from this world. Joseph then imagines himself as a number instead of a person, asking to be destroyed completely and forgotten.

The children sing the same lyrics as Joseph, indicating that they are in a similar situation as he is. They are the Children of Israel who have been taken from their own land and put into slavery in Egypt. However, they hold on to the hope and promise of finding their own peace of mind and a land of their own. The song portrays the importance of keeping hope alive in the most difficult of times and how the promise of something better can provide the strength to endure hardships.

Line by Line Meaning

Close every door to me,
Isolate me from the world,

Hide all the world from me
Shield me so I don't see the atrocities of the world,

Bar all the windows
Don't let me see any hope out there,

And shut out the light
Leaving me in dark and despair,

Do what you want with me,
Treat me as you want, but leave me alone,

Hate me and laugh at me
Make me a target of criticism and ridicule,

Darken my daytime
Take away any joy and happiness I have,

And toture my night
Fill my nights with nothing but pain and suffering,

If my life were important I
If my existence had meaning or value,

Would ask will I live or die
I would still wonder about my fate,

But I know the answers lie
I understand the truth and the reality,