Song Lyric Sunday/Song of the Day: Dan Hill, “Sometimes When We Touch”

So, it’s a touchy-feely Sunday, because the prompt is "touch/feel." Here’s a song from a touchy-feely period in music, the late ’70’s.

"Sometimes When We Touch" was written by Barry Mann (who has written extensively with Cynthia Weil) and Dan Hill, a Canadian singer and songwriter who had great success on the Adult Contemporary charts in the US and Canada in the late ’70’s and ’80’s. "Sometimes When We Touch," released in late 1977, reached #1 on both the Canadian Pop and Adult Contemporary charts, #3 on the Hot 100, #10 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, and #13 in the UK.

The lyrics, from AZLyrics:

You ask me if I love you
And I choke on my reply
I’d rather hurt you honestly
Than mislead you with a lie
And who am I to judge you
On what you say or do?
I’m only just beginning to see the real you

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty’s too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

Romance and all its strategy
Leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity
Some tenderness survives
I’m just another writer
Still trapped within my truth
A hesitant prize fighter
Still trapped within my youth

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty’s too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

At times I’d like to break you
And drive you to your knees
At times I’d like to break through
And hold you endlessly

At times I understand you
And I know how hard you’ve tried
I’ve watched while love commands you
And I’ve watched love pass you by
At times I think we’re drifters
Still searching for a friend
A brother or a sister
But then the passion flares again

And sometimes when we touch
The honesty’s too much
And I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you til I die
Til we both break down and cry
I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides

And that’s Song Lyric Sunday (and Song of the Day) for March 29, 2020.

What Linda Gets When She Gives Us The Prompt “Beside You” #socs

Canon CanoScan LiDE 120. Source: Canon.com

This is going to sound like a commercial, so just to let everyone know, I bought this myself and I’m not getting paid to write this.

Over twenty years ago, I had an HP flatbed scanner. It cost a fortune, connected to my computer with a SCSI card (remember those?), and it did a great job, but I rarely used it, and it took up a lot of "real estate" on the computer table. Finally I detached it and put it on the shelf in the closet of the spare bedroom, where it remains to this day.

A couple of years ago, Mary decided she wanted to scan her knitting patterns to load them onto her iPad. The old scanner wouldn’t connect to the computer I have now, so I needed something that would. I found the scanner above, the CanoScan LiDE 120, at Overstock, and ordered it.

Compared to my previous experience with hooking up a scanner, where I had to pull my computer apart to install a SCSI card before I hooked the scanner up, this was a USB plug and play hookup. I installed the software I needed to use it, and we started scanning, all within about ten minutes.

I’m no judge of scan quality, but it did a good job in that it was legible and we were able to scan multiple pages into a single PDF. It’s turned out to be a very handy piece of equipment. I use it to scan documents into Evernote so I can get rid of the paper document.

See what you get when you tell me "the first thing beside me," Linda?

Stream of Consciousness Saturday is brought to you each week by Linda Hill and this station. Now a word about Griffin shoe polish with its new applicator.

The Friday 5×2: WPTR (1540 AM, Albany NY), 3/30/58

The call letters WPTR now belong to a station in nearby Schenectady, New York, but from 1948 until 1985 they were licensed to broadcast from Albany, New York. They’re now WDCD, broadcasting news and talk 24 hours a day. They started playing Top 40 music in 1957. Here’s their Top 10 from March 30, 1958, courtesy of Oldiesloon. All the videos, incidentally, are provided by The45Prof, formerly known as MusicProf78 until YouTube shut down his channel. I’m glad to see him back!

  1. Perry Como, “Kewpie Doll” Kind of a cute song, which was a Top 10 hit in the US (#6) and the UK (#9).
  2. Huey (Piano) Smith & The Clowns, “Don’t You Just Know It” A song I didn’t recognize until I heard it; I never knew the title or artist until today. This was their second million-seller and peaked at #9 on the Pop chart and #4 on the R&B chart.
  3. Paul Anka, “Let The Bells Keep Ringing” This reached #16 on the Pop chart, as he hadn’t found a song that could do as well as “Diana” had the previous year.
  4. Link Wray & His Ray Men, “Rumble” A classic instrumental; it’s hard to believe that it’s over 60 years old. Reached #16 nationally.
  5. Ersel Hickey, “Bluebirds Over The Mountain” His best-known song, he wrote it after Phil Everly said he should write his own material. Reached #75 for him nationally; Ritchie Valens and The Beach Boys had luck with it as well.
  6. Laurie London, “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” I seriously thought Laurie was a woman, but he was 14 when he recorded this. It reached #1 on the “Most Played By Jockeys” chart and spent 4 weeks there, but it was his only hit.
  7. George Hamilton IV, “Now And For Always” George (no relation to the actor) was a teen idol in the ’50’s who became a country artist in the early ’60’s. This song reached #25 naionally.
  8. Ricky Nelson, “My Bucket’s Got A Hole In It” Ricky covered this Hank Williams tune and reached #10 on the Country chart, and reached #18 on the Pop chart.
  9. Kathy Linden, “Billy” This was Kathy’s first big hit, reaching #7.
  10. The Monotones, “Book Of Love” I was surprised to learn that this was their only Top 40 hit; it reached #5 nationally.

And that’s The Friday 5×2 for March 27, 2020.