Songfacts®:

• In the early '80s, Karen Carpenter wanted her lover to Touch Me When We're Dancing and Olivia Newton-John wanted to get "Physical," but The Pointer Sisters made it clear that slow, sensual love was their priority. The songs were all written by men - this one by John Bettis and Michael Clark.
• This song followed in the vein of "Fire," a 1978 hit for The Pointer Sisters that was written by Bruce Springsteen. That one finds them boiling over with passion for the man who is pulling them close, presumably with a slow hand.
• Conway Twitty showed that this song has a great deal of country appeal when he recorded it in 1982. His version went to #1 on the Country chart. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
• The lyricist John Bettis also wrote the words to several Carpenters' hits including "Top Of The World" and "Goodbye to Love" as well as Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time."
• This was featured in a Schick razor commercial in the late '80s when more and more songs were being used to promote products in exchange for hefty compensation or corporate sponsorship. It was a thorny issue for industry veterans and artists who turned their noses at "selling out." Not so for John Bettis.
  
  "In a way it's the ultimate compliment. It's like your song is part of the culture, so recognizable that it's a kind of celebrity. As long as these commercials are tasteful - and I think the Schick one is - it's fine," he told BAM magazine. But, he warned, there's a catch: "By allowing a song to be used in a commercial, you're cutting off any immediate follow-up cover possibilities. For instance, 'Slow Hand' was a #2 hit for the Pointers. A year later, Conway Twitty recorded it and had a #1 country hit. Had I allowed it to be used in a commercial right after the Pointers had a hit with it, Twitty would never have covered it. So you've got to be careful."