About The Song
“Touch The Hand” represents one-half of a very unusual single for Conway Twitty. Two-sided hits have emerged many times in music history, including “Oh, Lonesome Me”/”I Can’t Stop Loving You” by Don Gibson, “My Heart Skips A Beat”/”Together Again” by Buck Owens, “Bird Dog”/”Devoted To You” by the Everly Brothers and the biggest of them all – “Hound Dog”/”Don’t Be Cruel” by Elvis Presley, to name just a few.
Traditionally, successful “A” and “B” sides have charted at the same time, but the two hits that emerged from Twitty’s single in the spring of 1975 climbed the playlist one after the other, rather than simultaneously.
MCA Records released “Touch the Hand” on May 1, 1975 and three weeks later, on May 24th, it made its first appearance on Billboard’s country singles chart, debuting at #70. In its ninth week, it climbed into the number one position. On August 16th, just as “Touch the Hand” dropped out of the Top 40, the flip side, “Don’t Cry Joni,” debuted at #75, eventually peaking at #4 on October 11th.
“Don’t Cry Joni” represents the most successful record made by one of Twitty’s offspring. Conway’s daughter Kathy recorded under the name “Jesseca James” (charting three singles that reached no higher than #82) and his eldest son Mike cut records under the name “Charlie Tango,” but none made the chart. “Don’t Cry Joni,” featuring 16-year-old Joni Lee Twitty, was the only one of these efforts to become a hit.
Recorded in a December, 1974 session, “Don’t Cry Joni” was written by Conway about ten years earlier as a gift to his then six-year-old daughter, Joni. Later on, after years of disinterest, she suddenly decided at high school graduation that she wanted to be an entertainer, and her dad thought an appearance on an album might provide some encouragement.
Conway remembered that Joni was scared to death when they recorded “Don’t Cry Joni.” “Her knees were knockin’ – you could hear ‘em,” he laughed. Later, when MCA was making preparations to release the “Touch the Hand” single, Conway suggested putting the duet with Joni on the “B” side. He said, “It’s a good song. She can go in and put a quarter in the jukebox and play this thing. It might help her.”
So Conway did that and forgot about it. But instead of fading away into obscurity, “Don’t Cry Joni” became a hit when radio stations flipped “Touch the Hand.” “Don’t Cry Joni” also racked up surprising sales in the Spanish-speaking market.
Even as “Don’t Cry Joni” surged upward, songwriter Ron Peterson sued Twitty for copyright infringement on “Touch the Hand.” Though maintaining his innocence, Conway admitted that the similarities of his composition to Peterson’s “blew my mind,” as he put it. On his attorney’s advice, he settled out of court and subsequent releases have credited Peterson as a co-writer.
Video
Lyric
Today I heard my woman say something I never heard her say before
She just told me that she was gonna to leave me and that she didn’t love me anymore
But I know that the loving kindness and the understanding that she had when I first met her
Is still there, somewhere
So I’m gonna get down on my knees and I’m gonna say to my baby
Touch the hand of the man that made you a woman
Then tell me you don’t love me anymore
I was the first man to ever
Hold you in a special kind of way
And those unfamiliar feelings that caused you to tremble
I know you remember today
Before you decide that you’re gonna leave me
And do things you’ve never done before
Touch the hand of the man that made you a woman
Then tell me you don’t love me anymore
The two lips that once held sweet surprises
Surprised me and said goodbye today
And those two lovin’ arms that use to reach for me
Just reached out and pushed me away
I know you believe you don’t love me
Before you walk out that door
Touch the hand of the man that made you a woman
Then tell me you don’t love me anymore