"Can I have your number?"

But which one?

If you’re of a certain age (like around mine), white, grew up in middle class America and someone asks you about rock and roll songs built around a phone number, it’s quite likely you’ll go here:

This was a hit in 1981 and it went to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time. The sometimes weird thing about looking back on some rock/pop hits from my youth is that many of them seemingly came out of nowhere only to immediately became ubiquitous. Who had ever heard of Tommy Tutone before this song started to receive heavy rotation on the radio? Then, boom, this song was suddenly inescapable. By the way, the band was called Tommy Tutone and the Tommy in the band was one Tommy Heath, who was the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist. The only other song I’ve ever heard of by Tommy Tutone is this, which I think came from their eponymous titled debut LP:

I’ve heard “Cheap Date” maybe three times in my life (including listening to the playback of the above video while putting together this dose). I’ve heard “867-5309/Jenny,” and not often on purpose, thousands of times more.

But there is, of course, another phone number-based song that predates Tommy Tutone by some 15 years. On this day in 1965, the amazing Wilson Picket entered Stax studios, along with most of Booker T. & the MG’s (with the notable exception of keyboardist Booker T. Jones himself; Stax stalwart Isaac Hayes took the keyboard role), to record this beauty:

Partial inspiration for this tune (written by R&B/soul singer Eddie Floyd and MG’s guitarist Steve Cropper) came from this phone-number themed song released about four years earlier:

A bonus playlist of some other phone number songs and generally phone-themed bangers: Enjoy!

Hope you had a good week, Dosers. And best to you during the weekend.
#30#