music friday: dan hicks & his hot licks, “i scare myself”

I’ve told my anecdotes about this song so many times, even I am a bit tired of them. Quickie version: the night before our wedding, I saw Hicks and the Licks singing this on some late-night TV show, and realized it spoke for me. So at our wedding the next day, a wedding that took maybe five minutes (Judge Rose said a few words, Robin and I said a few words, the Judge married us), when it was my turn to say something personal and specific to the day (my “few words”), I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket and read the lyrics to “I Scare Myself.”

What I’m thinking about for this post is Dan Hicks, specifically, why wasn’t he more popular? He wasn’t a critical darling … he doesn’t appear on best-of lists. Christgau gave one of the Hot Licks albums a B+. The All-Music Guide is a bit kinder, but doesn’t hand out any 5-star ratings.

The first Hot Licks album was considered a botch, although I liked it OK, and it did have the first version of “I Scare Myself.” For the next three albums, the band was reconfigured into the “classic” lineup: Hicks, Sid Page on violin, Jaime Leopold on bass, and Maryann Price and Naomi Ruth Eisenberg on vocals (Naomi also playing violin). They released a live album, a studio album that included an updated version of “I Scare Myself” that became the standard, and finally another studio album that was more popular than the others and led to Hicks appearing on the cover of Rolling Stone.

So, of course, he broke up the band.

He’s never quit playing or recording, and he’s made a bit of a comeback in the 21st century. He has loyal fans here in the Bay Area. But he’s not going to be on the cover of Rolling Stone again.

I’ve always thought Hicks didn’t get quite the attention he deserved because his music was hard to define. It’s jazzy, but swing-era jazzy, not anything that’s come since then. And it’s mostly acoustic, and the songs are ironic in a folkish kind of way. Hicks is a fine rhythm guitarist … he started as a drummer … and his music generally moves with an enthusiastic beat (i.e., it swings), but he isn’t up there acting like Eric Clapton. He’s often very funny, but not always in a friendly way. Like I say, you can’t define his music, and that was a marketing problem in the 1970s just as it is today.

Here is the classic lineup from 1972 … there is some odd laughter in the background, and the poster guesses, probably correctly, that this is a rehearsal for their appearance on Flip Wilson’s show. The songs are “By Hook or By Crook” and “Shorty Falls in Love.”

Here’s their actual appearance on that show, with “Milk Shakin’ Mama”:

Here is the first recorded version of “I Scare Myself” … it’s the one I knew best at the time of our wedding:

And here are those lyrics I read at my wedding … they are just as accurate today as they were in 1973:

I scare myself
just thinking about you
I scare myself
when I'm without you
I scare myself
the moments that you're gone
I scare myself
when I let my thoughts run

And when they're runnin'
I keep thinking of you
and when they're runnin'
what can I do?

I scare myself
and I don't mean lightly
I scare myself
it can get frightenin'
I scare myself
to think what I could do
I scare myself
it's some kinda voodoo

and with that voodoo
I keep thinking of you
and with that voodoo
what can I do?

but it's oh so, so, so different
when we're together
and I'm oh so so much calmer, I feel better
for the stars have crossed our paths forever
and the sooner that you realize it, the better

then I'll be with you
and I won't scare myself
and I'll know what to do
and I won't scare myself
and then I'll think of you
and I won't scare myself
and then my thoughts'll run
and I won't scare myself