newcritics - Latest Comments in Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

rugs1 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:05:23 -0000

awesome, you really had a wide imagination making up this post..

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

sabasc3 — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:07:26 -0000

ELO "Telephone Line"

Hello-how are you
Have you been all right through all these lonely nights
That's what I'd say, I'd tell you everything
If you'd pick up that telephone
Hey-how you feelin'
Are you still the same
Don't you realize the things we did were all for real, not a dream
I just can't believe
They've all faded out of view
I look into the sky
And I wonder why
CHORUS
Telephone line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight
Telephone line, give me some time, I'm living in twilight
Okay, so no one's answering
Well, can't you just let it ring a little longer
I'll just sit tight, through shadows of the night
Let it ring for evermore
CHORUS

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Steve Bowbrick — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:55:24 -0000

There's a really beautiful instrumental by Penguin Cafe Orchestra that's assembled from the sounds you hear on the phone: that plaintive, unanswered ringing tone and so on. It's called Telephone & Rubber Band. Then there's 634-5789 by about a dozen different artists: Eddie Floyd, Sam & Dave, Ry Cooder...

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Matt R — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 12:31:49 -0000

Everyone loves Answering Machine from the Replacements

Big town's got its losers
Small town's got its vices
A handful of friends
One needs a match, one needs some ice
Call-waiting phone in another time zone
How do you say I miss you to
An answering machine?
How do you say good night to
An answering machine?

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Self Styled Siren — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 09:31:37 -0000

What? No Switchboard Susan?

First time I picked upthe telephone

I fell in love with your ringing tone

I'm a long distance romancer

I keep on trying till I get an answer ...

The Siren has loved Nick Lowe for lo these many years.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Dawn — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:35:56 -0000

I'm late to the thread and you hit all my favorites except:

'Hello, It's Me' from Todd Rundgren. I get nostalgic for my laughably simple high schoool blues just hearing that opening line.

By the way, I believe 'Operator' was the first 45 I ever bought with my own money. I still have it.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

estiv — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:22:39 -0000

I was just waiting for someone to mention "Memphis," my choice for the best phone song of all, partly because it's delivered entirely as one side of a phone conversation (as is "Operator" as well--hard to believe that next month Pigpen will have been dead thirty-four years). But since someone beat me to that one, instead here's part of a Beach Boys song, "Busy Doin' Nothin'." In keeping with its title, these lines are about a phone conversation that in fact does not take place.
- - - -
And lately I've been thinking 'bout a good friend
I'd like to see more of, yea yea yeah
I think I'll make a call

I wrote a number down
But I lost it
So I searched through my pocket book
I couldn't find it
So I sat and concentrated
On the number
And slowly it came to me
So I dialed it

And I let it ring a few times
There was no answer
So I let it ring a little more
Still no answer
So I hung up the telephone
Got some paper and
Sharpened up a pencil and
Wrote a letter to my friend.
- - - -
When heard with the music, the fact that a certain amount of effort produces no tangible (or even intangible) results is somehow the point. Aah--you'd have to hear it.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Rod Wilson — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:41:21 -0000

Tom mentioned cell phones; there are some good cell phone songs out there. "Cell Phones Ringing (In the Pockets of the Dead)" was written by Willie Nile, following the Madrid train bombings of March 2004. This is a very eerie phone song, and it represents our new society, every one has a phone in there pocket.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tom Watson — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:25:47 -0000

Dylan:

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

wwolfe — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:04:39 -0000

Chuck Berry! It's embarrassing for me to recall how many years I listened to this thinking it was about a guy trying to get in touch with an ex-girlfirend, instead of a dad trying to talk to his young daughter.

Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
'Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall

Help me, information, get in touch with my Marie
She's the only one who'd phone me here from Memphis Tennessee
Her home is on the south side, high up on a ridge
Just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge

Help me, information, more than that I cannot add
Only that I miss her and all the fun we had
But we were pulled apart because her mom did not agree
And tore apart our happy home in Memphis Tennessee

Last time I saw Marie she's waving me good-bye
With hurry home drops on her cheek that trickled from her eye
Marie is only six years old, information please
Try to put me through to her in Memphis Tennessee

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

OutOfContext — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:33:16 -0000

All right, I have to pull out the Steely Dan, since no one else will: "Rikki Don't Lose That Number".

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tom Watson — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:19:39 -0000

Ring me, ring me ring me
Up the President
And find out
Where my baby went
Ring me, ring me, ring me
Up the FBI
And find out if
My baby's alive
Yeah, yeah, yeah

Ramones - look up top at the header art, btw...

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

jackson — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:31:37 -0000

"Telephone is ringin'
You got me on the run
I'm driving in my car now
Anticipatin' fun"

Both phone and Car! I WIN!

Alice MF'in Cooper BT f'in W

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

blue girl — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 16:07:01 -0000

roxtar, I curse you for putting "Telephone Line" in my head! I've been singing it all day...

O.k. so no--ones answering!
Well can't you just let it ring a little longer, longer, longer
Ill just sit tight, through the shadows of the night
Let it ring for. evah. moooooooore.

:)

So, I'm gonna lob one back your way...

I'm not in love
So don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through
And just because
I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made
I'm not in love, no no, it's because..

I like to see you
But then again
That doesn't mean you mean that much to me
So if I call you
Don't make a fuss
Don't tell your friends about the two of us
I'm not in love, no no, it's because..

I keep your picture
Upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain that's lying there
So don't you ask me
To give it back
I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me
I'm not in love, no no, it's because..

Ooh you'll wait a long time for me
Ooh you'll wait a long time

I'm not in love
So don't forget it
It's just a silly phase I'm going through

And just because I call you up
Don't get me wrong, don't think you've got it made

I'm not in love
I'm not in love

And let's not forget...

big boys don't cwy
big boys don't cwy

:)

What a corny little song. But, I *love* it!

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tom Watson — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 15:06:52 -0000

Yeah, not to mention the cell phone - somehow, less romantically alluring. Or the text message ballad....

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tony Alva — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:35:16 -0000

Blue Girl, Couldn't agree more about that Croce tune. a VERY under rated song writer.

A couple of the tunes you guys have mentioned highlight another alluring aspect of the telephone and that's anonymity. I wanted to toss something about it into the post, but my scatter brain got drawn in another direction. But the telephone allows for all kinds of confessional type scenarios to anonymous people, most frequently operators.

Wow, it just dawned on me that this generation of song writers will not have the preverbal Ã¢â‚¬Å“operatorÃ¢â‚¬Â to rely on when crafting lyrics since so few operators actually exist these days.

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Jamie — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 11:57:13 -0000

Operator - the Grateful dead

Operator, can you help me
Help me if you please
Give me the right area code
And the number that I need
My rider left upon the midnight flyer
Singin' like a summer breeze

I think she's somewhere down south
Down about Baton Rouge
But I just-a can't remember no number
A number I can use
Direct'ry don't have it, central done forgot it
Got to find a number to use

Try'n' to check out her number
Try'n' to run down her line
Operator said that's priv'leged information
And it ain't no business of mine
It's floodin' down in Texas, poles are out in Utah
Got to find a private line

She could be hangin' 'round a steel mill
Workin' in a house of blue lights
Ridin' a getaway bus out of Portland
Talkin' to the night
I don't know where she's goin', I don't care where she's been
Long as she's been doin' it right
Long as she's been doin' it right

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

roxtar — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:28:14 -0000

The obvious - ELO "Telephone line"
The not-so-obvious - Sugarloaf - "Don't call us, we'll call you"

The ridiculous: Meri Wilson "Telephone Man"
"Hey, baby, I'm your telephone man
You just show me where you want it and I'll put it where I can
I can put it in the bedroom, I can put it in the hall
I can put it in the bathroom, I can hang it on the wall
You can have it with a buzz, you can have it with a ring
And if you really want it you can have a ding-a-ling
Because-a hey baby, I'm your telephone man"

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Fred Wilson — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 06:57:34 -0000

some girls tom - very nice

i am not much for telephone related lyrics but whenever cards, card playing, and card games are mentioned, my ears pick up

fred

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tom Watson — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:19:18 -0000

And more Stones, a classic bit:

Ive been waiting in the hall
Been waiting on your call
When the phone rings
Its just some friends of mine that say,
Hey, whats the matter man?
Were gonna come around at twelve
With some puerto rican girls that are just dyin to meet you.
Were gonna bring a case of wine
Hey, lets go mess and fool around
You know, like we used to

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

OutOfContext — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:14:13 -0000

Call Me. Not lyrically brilliant, but maybe my favorite Blondie. Call Mr. Lee, from Television--catches Verlaine at his playful and cryptic best. And these quotes from one of my bespectacled teenage idols: "I'm not a telephone junkie, I told you that when we were just good friends." and "Sometimes I phone you when I know you're not lonely, but I always disconnect it in time."
Oh, and one more...REM The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite: "Tell her,
Tell her she can kiss my ass, then laugh and say that you were only kidding.
That way shell know that its really, really, really, really me.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her."

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Tom Watson — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 21:13:58 -0000

Gotta call my baby on the telephone
Let her know that her daddy's comin' on home ...

Open All Night
from Springsteen's Nebraska

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

Lance Mannion — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 20:38:57 -0000

Helllll-oooh, bay-bee!
Chantilly Lace count?

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

blue girl — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:09:33 -0000

What a great post. "Operator" came on the radio the other day as I was driving around. That song is so pretty and sad. So melancholy.

So I can call just to tell 'em I'm fine and to show
I've overcome the blow, I've learned to take it well --
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn't real, but that's not the way it feels.

Most times I dread talking on the phone. I cringe when it rings off the hook at night. But, there are a few people that I don't see often enough. And there's nothing better than listening to them talk. And laugh.

Aw. I'm sad now.

Counting Crows: Raining in Baltimore
This circus is falling down on its knees
The big top is crumbling down
Its raining in baltimore fifty miles east
Where you should be, no ones around
I need a phone call
I need a raincoat
I need a big love
I need a phone call

Re: Operator, Can You Help Me Place This Call: Great Telephone Songs

M.A. Peel — Sat, 03 Feb 2007 03:21:37 -0000

Type your comment here.
That is a pretty dim view of what can be a lifeline, literally, for some. What fascinates me is that when someone you know/love utters just the tiniest word on the phone--barely finishes the word "hello"--you know who it is, instantly. I love that.

Joni Mitchell:
I deal in dreamers, and telephone screamers--Free Man in Paris

Tethered to a rining telephone, in a room full of mirrors--Down to You