Remember When Tina Turner Covered This Dan Hill Classic in 1979?

In 1977, Dan Hill released “Sometimes When We Touch”. The song, Hill’s first hit single, was written by Hill and Barry Mann. Hill included the romantic song on his Longer Fuse album.

The chorus of “Sometimes When We Touch” says, “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.” Understandably, the song has since been covered by numerous other artists, including a duet version with Mark Gray and Tammy Wynette in 1985. 

Other artists who also put their own spin on “Sometimes When We Touch” include British singer Newton and rocker Bonnie Tyler. But what some people may not know is that Tina Turner also covered “Sometimes When We Touch”. Turner’s take on this Hill song is part of Rough, Turner’s third solo album.

Unfortunately, Tina Turner didn’t have a big hit with “Sometimes When We Touch”, or any of the songs on Rough. Also in 1979, Turner released “Fruits Of The Night” from Rough, along with “Love Explosion”, the title track of the record that followed Rough, followed by “Music Keeps Me Dancin’”. 

Turner didn’t release any songs from 1980 to 1982. In 1983, she released “Let’s Stay Together”. A Top 30 single, “Let’s Stay Together” is the first single from Turner’s memorable Private Dancer album, the beginning of her successful solo career.

The Story Behind “Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill

“Sometimes When We Touch” is Hill’s most successful single. He likely had no idea when he wrote it that this song would still remain legendary, decades later. 

Hill wrote “Sometimes When We Touch” not necessarily to write a hit single. Rather, Hill wrote this song to get the attention of a girl. Hill was just 19 years old when he penned “Sometimes When We Touch”.

“There was this woman that I was falling desperately in love with, and I just thought everybody was naturally monogamous,” Hill recalls. “My parents have always stayed together. Well, this woman didn’t want anything to do with monogamy. She wanted to get close to me, so to speak. But she wanted to be close with a lot of other guys at the same time, and I found this to be terribly distressful. She also liked to tell me about how all the other guys were so much richer than I was, older, more established.”

One artist who loved “Sometimes When We Touch” is Dolly Parton. In fact, in 2022, Parton said “Sometimes When We Touch” was her favorite song that she did not write.

Photo by David Redfern/Redferns