Cole was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin, since its inception in 1967. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.
More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's I've Got Love On My Mind, as well as Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady) (1976), Our Love (1978), and Someone That I Used To Love (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles. But then her career hit a snag in the early 1980s due to a severe drug problem. By 1985, Natalie was clean, sober, and in fine voice, and ready to begin her comeback in earnest with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label.
In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad I Live for Your Love. This album was the one that put Natalie Cole firmly back in the spotlight, yielding three major hit singles: Jump Start, "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a taste of things to come in her career with a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart. In 1989, the aptly-titled Good To Be Back gave her another across-the-board smash with "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).
However, it was her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits, that gave her the most success. Ironically, when Natalie began her career, she was determined not to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level. But Unforgettable... With Love certainly paid off. The set sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold. The one sour spot in the album's success was that it strained Natalie's already-tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, who said in interviews at the time that she couldn't listen to the album or attend any of her daughter's concerts because she felt that the music really belonged to her late husband.
Natalie has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours," #8 AC and #84 Pop in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
Battle With Drugs
In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life. In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. Cole said she began experimenting with drugs while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975. Cole continued to spiral out of control - including an incident in which her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy were on a drug binge - until she entered rehab in 1983.
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.
Natalie has been married three times and has a son Robert Yancy (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced the Grammy Award-winning Unforgettable... With Love, Natalie's love offering featuring songs made famous by her father, including a faux-duet between her and her father.
The marriage to Fischer ended in divorce a few years later, amidst rumors of domestic verbal and physical abuse.
It has also been reported that Natalie has recovered from a life-threatening hepatitis illness (most likely the cause of her years of drug abuse) by having a liver transplant.
Miss Cole went on to release more albums after Unforgettable...With Love, with most of them featuring jazz-oriented standard songs or pop-song remakes. None of the albums were nearly as successful as Unforgettable...With Love.
As of 2013, Natalie Cole spent most of her professional time covering the concert circuit entertaining audiences around the world with her hits.
On December 31, 2015, Natalie Cole died from congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was aged 65.
Too Close for Comfort
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Don't upset your cart when she's so close
Be soft, be sweet, but be discreet
Don't go off your feet, she's so close for comfort
Too close, too close for comfort, please, not again
Too close, too close to know just when to say "when"
On your guard, take care, while there's such temptation
One thing leads to another
Too late to run for cover
She's much too close for comfort now
Too close, too close for comfort, please, not again
Too close, too close to know just when to say "when"
Be firm and be fair, be sure, beware
On your guard, take care, while there's such temptation
One thing leads to another
Too late to run for cover
She's much too close for comfort now
Too close, much too close
She's much too close for comfort now
Natalie Cole's song "Too Close for Comfort" is about the struggle of trying to resist temptation. The singer advises her heart to be wise, smart and behave when her love interest is so close, to not upset her cart. She sings "be soft, be sweet, but be discreet, don't go off your feet, she's so close for comfort". The singer wants to maintain a level of distance and avoid getting carried away in the moment that could cause her to ultimately end up in a situation that she may regret. The chorus reveals that the situation is becoming too close for comfort and she pleads with herself to not let it happen again. She sings "be firm, be fair, be sure, beware, on your guard, take care, while there's such temptation" in a bid to remain in control of the situation. In the end, the singer realizes that it may be too late to run for cover because her love interest is, in fact, much too close for comfort now.
The song was written by Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener, and George David Weiss and was originally written for the 1956 Broadway musical "Mr. Wonderful". Since then, it has been covered by various artists, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan.
Line by Line Meaning
Be wise, be smart, behave, my heart
Use your better judgment and behave appropriately, my feelings
Don't upset your cart when she's so close
Don't disrupt your emotional stability when she's in such close proximity
Be soft, be sweet, but be discreet
Be gentle and kind, but keep it private
Don't go off your feet, she's so close for comfort
Don't lose your balance, she's too close for comfort
Too close, too close for comfort, please, not again
It's too much, too intimate, please not again
Too close, too close to know just when to say 'when'
Too close to determine the appropriate time to end it
Be firm, be fair, be sure, beware
Be resolute, be impartial, be certain, be cautious
On your guard, take care, while there's such temptation
Be careful and watchful of the temptation present
One thing leads to another
A progression of events may occur
Too late to run for cover
It's past the point of running away
She's much too close for comfort now
She's extremely close, and it's making me uncomfortable
Too close, much too close
It's excessively intimate and engaging
She's much too close for comfort now
She's excessively close for my comfort now
Lyrics Β© BOCK IP LLC, BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Songtrust Ave, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: George David Weiss, Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Rose speaks truth!! like it is!!!
Tune into Natalie's music Vibe πΉπΏπΉπΏ she's irresistible π