By Mitch Abramson

 

It was a bit strange seeing the Canadian pop-singer Dan Hill stare affectionately into the eyes of Manny Pacquiao while they crooned the 1977 ballad, “Sometimes when we Touch.” It was even stranger to see the couple kick-off a press conference in New York with the song to promote Pacquiao’s Nov. 12 welterweight fight against Juan Manuel Marquez in Las Vegas.

“I wanna hold you til I die. Til we both break down and cry. I wanna hold you till the fear in me subsides,” they sang to each other.

But for Marquez, who waited for the song to end before taking place on stage alongside Pacquiao, it was business as usual. Marquez wasn’t bothered by the performance or that Pacquiao has led off their press conferences together with a rendition of the song. He patiently waited off stage until Pacquiao finished.

As for his opinion of Pacquiao as a singer, Marquez was complimentary- up to a point.

“I liked it,” Marquez said. “If he thinks that he’s a great singer, then it’s good for him. I thought it was good.”

According to Wikipedia,  Pacquiao first sang the song on the Jimmy Kimmel show on Nov. 3, 2009, the first time he was a guest on an American late-night talk show on television. In April of 2011, he released the song as a single, and he and Dan Hill, who wrote the ballad in 1977, have been performing together during the promotion to hype his fight with Marquez.

Mitch Abramson covers boxing for the New York Daily News and BoxingScene.com.