The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #108740   Message #2266923
Posted By: Slag
19-Feb-08 - 07:53 PM
Thread Name: Phone numbers in songs.
Subject: RE: Phone numbers in songs.
The very first Jerry Lewis telethon had a studio in Fresno CA participating and to the tune of "When the Saints Go Marching In" they sang over and over and over....:

    AMherst 8, Oh AMherst 8, Oh Amherst 8 0411
    You'll be glad you called that number, AMherst 8 0411.

It really killed the song for me.

Tangentially, Johnny Burnette has a song "It's a Big, Big World" that starts off "9127 Avenue, walked up to the door, 'Hello sir, how are you?'" I never figured out if that was 91, 27 (th) Avenue or the other. At any rate the tangent point was in the verse: "Going out and find myself a telephone, got a pocket full of dimes, I know her last name is Jones. Jones, Jones, all I see, page 19 to 23. Big big world can be unkind, the phone just took my last dime."

OK, I'll throw in the chorus in case you haven't seen it before:

    It's a big, big city,
    It's a big, big world.
    How's a boy gonna find
    A pretty little girl
    In this big, big world?