UK single release: Getting Closer by Wings

Wings’ single ‘Getting Closer’ was released in the United Kingdom on 17 August 1979.

It was the band’s second UK single from the Back To The Egg album, and the follow-up to ‘Old Siam, Sir’. The b-side was ‘Baby’s Request’.

A song like this might be thought of as a collage. I put things together that I’d seen or heard, and it had been around for a few years before we recorded it. I seem to remember there being a sign along the road somewhere: ‘Beware Cattle’. And there might have been bullet holes in the signs, because guys sniped at them for target practice, so I thought, ‘Cattle beware… Gluing my fingers together/Radio play me a song with a point.’ You know, not everything needs to have a point. A song is kind of a construction job, so I’ve done my usual thing of just sort of assembling it all and taking it somewhere.

‘Getting Closer’ peaked at number 60 on the UK singles chart on 15 September 1979, and remained in the top 100 for just three weeks.

It had fared better in the US, where it reached number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 28 July.