Jenny, I got your number
I need to make you mine!
Tulsa Telephone Book by Tom T. Hall:
Readin’ that Tulsa telephone book, can drive a guy insane
Especially if that girl you’re lookin’ for has no last name
I gotta find her and tell her, I don’t want our love to end
So I’m readin’ that Tulsa telephone book again
All of the Tulsa operators know my voice now
And they gotta know how long I’ve been alone
If you meet a girl named Shirley with some ribbons in her hair
Would you tell her that she’s wanted on the phone?
I remember when my entire group of friends had all just bought Joan Baez’s album Diamonds And Rust.
She has said that she was writing a song just as she got a call from Bob Dylan:
Well, I’ll be damned
Here comes your ghost again…
But that’s not unusual
It’s just that the moon is full
And you happened to call…
Where are you calling from?
A booth in the Midwest
And a later song was her waiting for a call (again, everyone assumes it’s Dylan):
Red telephone sitting by my bed
Practically bore your name,
Lying alone in the twilight zone
Waiting for your call to come in…
Some time in the mid 1970s one of those K-Tel hits collections(*) or similar kind of product took up residence in my ride to school’s 8-track and I had to bear with this for the whole fall semester.
And the operator says, forty cents more,
for the next…
…three…
…minutes…
My take after a couple weeks was: Mrs. Avery was so right to get Sylvia to move on from this loser.
( * Which to its credit included Looking Glass’s Brandy, but again to its detriment also included Having My Baby.)
“You Know My Name, Look Up the Number”
I would add WOLD by Harry Chapin
“Hello, Honey it’s me…”
And poor Pink was really forlorn over his cheating wife,also in the song part of Nobody’s Home
“When I try to get through
On the telephone to you
There’s still nobody home”
Rikki don’t lose that number
You don’t want to call nobody else
Send it off in a letter to yourself
Rikki don’t lose that number
It’s the only one you own
You might use it if you feel better
When you get home
I’m guessing the guy that Beyonce is telling off in “Telephone” is feeling pretty lovelorn.
Ring, ring, why don’t you give me a call?
Ring, ring, the happiest sound of them all
Ring, ring, I stare at the phone on the wall
And I sit all alone impatiently
Won’t you please understand the need in me
So, ring, ring, why don’t you give me a call?
So, ring, ring, why don’t you give me a call?
Sung by A and A, lyrics by B, melody by the other B, Enrique and Stig also credited.
However, returing to the OP, I submit “Mr Telephone Man”
Mr. telephone man, there’s something wrong with my line
When I dial my baby’s number, I get a click every time
Mr. telephone man, there’s something wrong with my line
When I dial my baby’s number, I get a click every time
Some strange woman is on the telephone (the telephone)
Keeps telling me that my baby, he ain’t home (that he’s not home)
And if Joan Baez was unhappy when she was dumped by Bob Dylan, imagine how unhappy his previous girlfriend Suze Rotolo was when Dylan dumped her for Baez.
Maybe a bit of a stretch (and, speaking of stretch, if it snows that stretch down south
won’t ever stand the strain), but how about ‘Wichita Lineman’?
I hear you singing in the wire
I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita lineman
Is still on the line
Not exactly lovelorn, but there’s Ray Stevens’ “It’s Me Again Margaret”.
There’s “Off the Hook” by the Stones…
Not to be confused with Telephone Man by Meri Wilson.
Anybody remember Sylvia from the early 80’s? Nobody? Nobody?
Well, your nobody called today
She hung up when I asked her name
Well, I wonder
Does she think shes being clever?
I do!
She also found a Snapshot!
Pennsylvania 65000 - Glenn Miller Orchestra.
If You Won’t See Me by the Beatlles (and remade by Anne Murray)
When I call you up, your line’s engaged
I have had enough, so act your age
We have lost the time that was so hard to find
And I will lose my mind
If you won’t see me
Also:
867-5309/Jenny by Tommy Tutone and
I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder