“I Scare Myself”
by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks
from Striking It Rich (1972)
MP3 no longer available for download; 5:46 running time; lyrics
“I Scare Myself”
by Thomas Dolby
from The Flat Earth (1984)
MP3 no longer available for download; 5:41 running time
This song has come up in conversations with various people several times in the last couple months. No, really. A couple of people were aware that Dan Hicks had done the original version, but no one I talked to had actually heard it. I have always felt this song’s violin solo is one of the best solos on any instrument in popular music ever, and it just doesn’t seem right that it should be so obscure. Besides that, the premise of the lyrics is just plain odd—or at least it seems that way to me now. I’m afraid to admit how much sense it made to me at age 19….
Even in the freeform/anything-goes wildness of the early ’70s music scene, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks were an anomaly. A six-piece acoustic band playing something resembling swing, at the time it sounded like they had just stepped off a flying saucer. For those of us listening to, say, Free or Led Zeppelin or Derek and the Dominoes, there just wasn’t any way to categorize this sort of material. From my oh-so-sophisticated vantage point of 30 years later I can see the instrumental debt to Django Reinhardt and Stephen Grapelli, and hear the vocal influence of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross—but back then all I knew was that it was weird. But I liked it. And that violin solo invariably took me to another world.
The solo was, of course, by Sid Page, who has since become very well established (with the Sid Page Strings) as a string arranger for film scores. Dan Hicks recently made a comeback of sorts, and I was very pleased to find the CD available after so many years. This post has actually been waiting almost a week; I had recorded my vinyl album into Pro Tools so I could have it on CD, but was stressing over the poor quality—I had played that LP a lot, and it showed. In the end I ordered the CD from the ArtistDirect Network and waited until it came to encode the MP3.
It is rare that a cover can be just as compelling as the original, but leave it to Thomas Dolby to do just that. I was recently talking to a guy who described Dolby’s version of this song as “lounge music meets electronica.” Fair enough, though I’d say the electronica movement owes a lot to Thomas Dolby rather than the other way around.
I don’t usually care much for trombone, but it was an inspired choice for this track, and the muted trumpet lines are amazingly weird. The Flat Earth was Dolby’s second album and one of my favorites of that era—it pretty much defines the term “atmospheric,” by the standards of 1984 anyway. The CD appears to be out of print now, so if you find a copy be sure and snap it up.
One final rant, which I’ve made before: if you are completely numb between the ears, please don’t add to the CDDB database. The Dan Hicks CD was listed as “Stricking It Rich,” and the genre was “country.” Yeehaw. Sid Page, he’s one shitkickin’ fiddle player, doncha know.
Good call on the Stephan Grappelli influence (he's another underrated one). The harmonies are the only thing that keep me from thinking of this as a Trout Fishing In America tune or the like. The oddity of the 'Dan Hicks sound' seems only surpassed by the fact that T.D. picked it up for a cover. Trombone is such a weird instrument to solo with- it has to be appropriate, then it totally works like nothing else (the Smithereens do that). Thomas Dolby in the '80s was indeed way ahead of his time...
I Scare Myself is one of the greatest records ever made. I was about 17 when I first heard it. I did not know who Dan Hicks was but I happened to be watching a program on a late friday night that might have been called "In Concert." There was Dan and the band looking wonderfully unlike anybody else. I still remember they played Long Comes a Viper and then I Scare Myself. I bought the CD and over the next few years probably played that album literally thousands of times. I remeber thinking then, "Sid Page's solo is the greatest solo I've ever heard." I had a volkswagen squareback and my friends and I would drive endlessly through the Kentucky country roads on summer nights, slightly stoned, and just groove on and on to that song (also John Girton's solo in Moody Richard). I wish I could recapture the almost mystical feeling of those nights. Enough self indulgent nostalgia.
I love this song and it also has special relevance as my wife and I had our first kiss during this song. I know it has been a long time since the above log was last looked at, but if anybody has an MP3 copy I would love to receive it from somebody. I have lots of 80's music which I can send in return but I just want this one song!! For free!
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