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To the old Guess Who hollerer, that's as scary as being up on stage, singing his songs from the bottom of his heart to his fans, naked.
And that's what he does now and will do at the Nelson Stadium, Saturday, in his show called Up Close And Alone.
So when he sings his hit I'm Scared, believe it.
"There is a certain fear to going on stage all alone. There is nowhere to hide. When there is a band around you there are guitar solos and drums fills. When you're on your own, you really have to be on your toes," he says. "And I still get terribly nervous before each show -- until I've got three or four songs under my belt and realize the audience is with me. Then it's OK."
Fear is a great motivator.
"One thing it has done for me is brought my piano playing back up several large notches," he admits. "I'm playing a lot fuller and a lot better than five years ago, because I have to be the whole band with just my two hands."
And now that he knows he can get away with it, it isn't at all bad for the ego, being out there all alone, he admits.
POP MUSIC
After all he is in pretty select company.
"In pop music, there is only a handful of people who can go on stage and do a whole show all by themselves," he says. "I've seen Neil Young do it and it was tremendous. I've seen Sting do it and it was terrific and I've seen Paul McCartney and Joni Mitchell do it, but there aren't many."
This one-man show has been Cummings staple for about three years now, but it all happened gradually and started a long time ago, Cummings reveals.
"Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I'd do TV telethons for the Variety Club in Toronto, just sitting alone at the piano, singing some of the big songs. I got great response and my manager started nudging me more and more to take it out in the public."
Cummings demurred.
"One or two songs on a telethon is one thing, I told him. Holding a crowd's attention alone for 90 or 100 minutes is another.
"To my great delight, I was wrong and he was right, and it has mushroomed beyond my wildest dreams."
In the three years of touring with it, the show has found its own pace and its own timing, Cummings says. He does a little more talking about the songs and is connecting with the audience more.
"If they like the songs, already ... I've had thousands of letters from people saying they really enjoy hearing about why they were written, what inspired them, where the ideas came from," Cummings says. And it is that intimacy with his audience that delights him.
REVIEW
There was a review of an Edmonton show that summed it all up for him.
"The reviewer said: 'At the end of the night, we all felt we had been invited into Burton's living room'. That's mission accomplished for me. That was the goal I had, even though I hadn't thought of it in those words. It was like being at home with me, hearing what the songs sounded like while they were being written."
He hasn't stopped writing new songs, though.
He has enough new material to start thinking about a new album and sometimes he'll throw one of these new songs into the show to see how it'll fly. That and old favourites, such as Mack The Knife, by other songwriters.
50TH BIRTHDAY
His own songs have changed with the years.
"I had my 50th birthday last New Year's Eve and at this stage of my life, after 30 albums, the lyrics are more important to me.
"My songs are a little more existential, a little less about frivolous love and a bit more about aging, having a look at the world and at the universe and why are we here."
The Stephen Hawking approach, he chuckles.
"But I still have some pretty good love songs, too," he laughs. "Ninety per cent of pop music is about relationships and if it wasn't for Bob Dylan and Peter Townshend it might be all that way. Especially Bob Dylan. He really changed the direction of songwriting, though even he doesn't know what the hell he was talking about half the time. It was a stream of consciousness thing.
"John Lennon did the same thing. Who the hell knows what Strawberry Fields is all about? But it is food for thought and the great thing about songs is that a thousand listeners can have there own thousand different thoughts."