Dan Hill is the most sensitive person on the planet. He sobs when ponies sneeze, weeps uncontrollably when anvils fall on Wile E. Coyote’s head. And the proof lies in “Sometimes When We Touch” from 1977’s Longer Fuse, the most wince-worthy song ever recorded. For complete effect you have to watch the video. If cringing could kill, YouTube would have a host of corpses on its conscience.
On Longer Fuse the namby-pamby Canadian folk rocker’s emotional palette ranges from vomit-bag earnestness to shudder-inducing naked honesty—honesty that will make you wish it would put some clothes on. Seemingly without effort Dan makes Janis Ian look like Sid Vicious, James Taylor like Attila the Hun. Hill didn’t invent the man bun—he is one. If emotional fragility was radioactive we’d best be advised to erect a containment dome around the guy—we don’t want an emotional Chernobyl on our hands.
Maudlin is the byword of Longer Fuse, and nowhere does he do it better than on the feelings tenderizer that is “Sometimes When We Touch.” Wracked by a deep and painful hurt he sings (and it’s worth quoting in full):
“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 ’til the fear in me subsides.”
“Sometimes When We Touch” topped the pop charts in Hill’s native Canada, which I find inexplicable—could it be that the moose hunters, ice fishermen, and burly lumberjacks of the Great White North are tender shoots requiring plenty of empathetic sunlight? Hell, the moose themselves probably break down in tears when they hear it.
You would guess that follow-up “14 Today” would be a touching coming-of-age acoustic ballad, that is until you hear the creepy opening lines, in which the female subject of the song celebrates her coming of age by going to a party where some boys get her drunk, and one in effect date rapes her. The gist of “In the Name of Love” is that love is all too often nothing but a hurtful game—the lines I love most go “Playin’ roles again both actin’ so defensive/As if some pre-programmed machine/Took over all our senses.” How futuristic!
On the rare upbeat number “Crazy” Mr. Sensitivity runs at the sight of a woman with “spaced-out eyes” who says (and I have no idea what she means) she feels orange. “I feel so helpless I don’t know what to say,” sings Hill, so how come he keeps singing? Especially when he’s running away? I’ve tried it and it’s not easy to sing and sprint at the same time. “McCarthy’s Day” is an autobiographical song about his parents’ interracial marriage during the dark days of Joseph McCarthy, and his pride at their courage makes it difficult to hate the song, even if his vocals make you wish he’d put his tonsils on a heavy regimen of steroids.
On “Jean” Dan’s timid emotions vis a vis love make him want to run away and hide (yet again!), but on this one there isn’t a single large boulder or South American country with no extradition treaty in sight: “And I’d write songs only when the pain became too obvious inside,” he sings, ”When the screaming in my soul left me no place to hide.” It’s hard to avoid the fact that Dan’s an emotional chicken, whose fight or flight response is permanently set on flight. Hill neither runs nor hides on “You Are All I See,” but the lines “And everything that’s you/Spills into me” makes me think he should call a qualified plumber or highly regarded roofer. Too much spillage can lower your emotional property value.
“Southern California” is the only remotely interesting song on Longer Fuse, even if it apes Jackson Browne and is approximately the 10,000th song to condemn the spiritual emptiness of the place where “dreams almost come true.” I like the part where he’s approached by a prostitute and “his body burns,” if only because it proves that Dan has real blood flowing threw his veins. He seems to find this so disturbing he lets it be known he doesn’t want to be part of the “Southern California dream” although I’ll give you dollars to donuts he’d change his mind the minute he won a Grammy. Spiritual emptiness is a small price to pay for a $1,500,000 house in Beverly Hills.
The title track includes the classically dumb lines, “You say you wanna feel young again/Ain’t it funny how that happens when you get older.” And you know he’s lying through his Canadian choppers when he sings, “You’re livin’ with a rock ‘n’ roll musician off the coast/I hope he makes it.” Fess up, Dan—you would sooner the guy get mauled to death by a mountain lion in the Hollywood Hills. On closer “Still Not Used To” Hill sings “Guess I’m still a child tryin’ so hard to please/Tryin’ to seek approval through my songs.” Sounds to me like Dan needs to do some work on nurturing his inner child.
Like Billy Squier, Hill is one of those musical artists who’ve achieved rock and roll immortality for all the wrong reasons, but that said he’s done us all an invaluable service—whenever I need a laugh all I need do is watch the video for “Sometimes When We Touch.” About how many other artists can say as much? Hell, I would love to shake Hill’s hand for enriching my life. But he’s currently cowering in a groundhog burrow, and I can’t seem to lure him out.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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