Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Sometimes the lack of feedback can kill off a series of mixes. So it was with the Any Major Telephone series which I started in April 2013 with Volume 1. Any Major Telephone Vol. 2 dropped a few months later, and Vol. 3 in March 2014. The first two mixes got a lot of comments; the third only four (which in those days was rather little. Nowadays it would be a pleasing reaction). I thought the thing had run its course.

I had cause to revisit the Any Major Telephones when reader Jungle Jim (possibly not his real name) asked me to re-up Vol. 1 in the series, which he had somehow lost. I was happy to oblige — as I always am, provided I still have the requested mixes. Jim still had the other two volumes, but I have re-upped them as well. I reckon Vol. 2 is the best of the three.

And as I looked up the folder with Vol. 1, I noticed that I still had a long shortlist of telephone-related songs. So, after nine years, here’s Volume 4!

On the first two mixes, I used only songs that featured actual phone calls, direct or implied. Vol. 3 featured mostly tracks nominated by readers. This mix, like Vol. 3, places no restrictions on the nature of telephone-related subject matter, so there are a lot of ruminations about the potential of phone calls, usually involving a theme around the invitation or hope to receive a call.

The present mix closes with a French cover of Andy Williams’ Music To Watch ls Go By. Since our French singer from 1967 is a girl, who doubtless had her share of unnerving men watching her go by, she changes the subject to telephone games. Both song’s lyrics would have little application in the 2020s, when neither telephones and advocacy of sexist attitudes are appropriate subject matters in pop music.

Conversely, the song by the Drive-By Truckers, from almost 20 years ago, has a great message for our current age. When you drive, leave that cellphone alone! Or you might end up like country star George Jones, who in 1999 crashed into a bridge and was lucky to survive for another 14 years. He blamed talking on his cellphone while driving, though he later admitted to also having been under the influence of alcohol. The experience drove the hard drinker to sobriety. So, obviously, don’t drink (or smoke weed) and drive — and, please, don’t text and drive!As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and include home-payphoned covers. PW in comments.

1. Curiosity Killed The Cat – Name And Number (1989)
2. Blondie – Call Me (1980)
3. City Boy – 5.7.0.5. (1977)
4. Foreigner – Love On The Telephone (1979)
5. RAH Band – Clouds Across The Moon (1985)
6. Deacon Blue – When Will You Make My Telephone Ring (1988)
7. Prince – How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (1982)
8. Chaka Khan – Telephone (1992)
9. Corinne Bailey Rae – Call Me When You Get This (2006)
10. Mayer Hawthorne – You Called Me (2011)
11. The Sylvers – Hot Line (1976)
12. Aaron Neville – Wrong Number (I’m Sorry, Goodbye) (1962)
13. Billy Fury – Phone Call (1960)
14. Hawkshaw Hawkins – Lonesome 7-7203 (1963)
15. Mel Tillis – Coca Cola Cowboy (1979)
16. Drive-By Truckers – George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues (2009)
17. Shelby Lynne – Telephone (2003)
18. Sheryl Crow – Callin’ Me When I’m Lonely (2013)
19. Wings – Call Me Back Again (1973)
20. 10cc – Donna (1972)
21. ABBA – Ring Ring (1973)
22. Natacha Snitkine – Le Jeu du telephone (1967)

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With the third mix of telephone-related songs we are going interactive: after the first track, The Main Ingredient’s great version of Work To Do, I’ve handed over the compiling to you, the readers. That is to say, all the other songs are suggestions offered in the comments section (which you are more than welcome you utilise, even to just say hello!) and on my Facebook page (facebook.com/amdwhah).

Some of the suggestions I had previously excluded because they didn’t quite fit my criteria of songs having to include actual telephone conversations, others I had completely overlooked, and some were happy new discoveries, or in the case of the Falco track, re-discovery. It certainly is an eclectic mix.

As always, the mix includes home-dialed covers. PW in comments.

1. The Main Ingredient – Work To Do (1973)
2. Albert King – Phone Booth (1984)
3. Average White Band – Person To Person (1974)
4. Sylvia – Nobody (1982)
5. Falco – No Answer (Hallo Deutschland) (1987)
6. Pete Shelley – Telephone Operator (1983)
7. Lou Reed – New York Telephone Conversation (1972)
8. Yellow Dog – Just One More Night (1978)
9. The Jags – Back Of My Hand (1979)
10. The Nerves – Hanging On The Telephone (1976)
11. The Undertones – You’ve Got My Number (1979)
12. The Rolling Stones – Off The Hook (1964)
13. Floyd Dixon – Call Operator 210 (1952)
14. H-Bomb Ferguson – Bookie’s Blues (1952)
15. Jimmy Norman – I Don’t Love You No More (1962)
16. The Marvelettes – Beechwood 45789 (1962)
17. Eddie Floyd – 634-5789 (1967)
18. Tyrone Davis – I Had It All The Time (1972)
19. Carol Douglas – Doctor’s Orders (1974)
20. Jeannie Reynolds – The Phone’s Been Jumping All Day (1975)
21. Howard Tate – Sorry Wrong Number (2003)
22. Billy Joel – Sometimes A Fantasy (1980)
23. Squeeze – 853-5937 (1987)
24. Meri Wilson – Telephone Man (1977)
25. Skyy – Call Me (1981)

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The first Any Major Telephone mix attracted a nice response, in the comments here and on Facebook, with loads of suggestions, some I had already on my shortlist, some I don’t even know. I’ll see what I can find on the suggestions I don’t already have; if I can, then there will be a third volume, compiled by the readers of this blog.

In the meantime, here are 24 tracks of my choosing, all featuring or suggesting telephone calls. Two belong together: In “Woman To Woman”, Shirley Brown tells the woman her man is cheating with to lay the fuck off; in an answer record, Barbara Mason explains to Shirley exactly why her man is straying. It’s pretty brutal stuff.

The Bobby Vee track could have featured on the Bacharach: The Lesser Known Songbook mix, for it’s a David/Bacharach composition (and, yes, that’s how they used to be credited; take a look at the image in the file’s ID3 tag).

Disclaimer: Inclusion in this mix does not in itself imply my endorsement of a track. I want to make the explicitly clear and ask you to remember that when you hear track 5.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes covers. PW in comments.

1. Mott The Hoople – One Of The Boys (1973)
2. The Mothers of Invention – Telephone Conversation (1968)
3. Jim Croce – Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels) (1972)
4. Little River Band – Home On Monday (1977)
5. Paul Evans – Hello, This Is Joannie (1978)
6. Love Unlimited – Walking In The Rain (1972)
7. Brenda Holloway – Operator (1965)
8. Shirley Brown – Woman To Woman (1974)
9. Barbara Mason – From His Woman to You (1974)
10. Bunny Sigler – Regina (1973)
11. Eddie Floyd – 634-5789 (1967)
12. Johnny Fallin – Party Line (1959)
13. John Lee Hooker – Just Me And My Telephone (1951)
14. Effie Smith – Dial That Telephone (1953)
15. Orville Reed – The Telephone Girl (1927)
16. Jim Reeves – He’ll Have To Go (1960)
17. Bobby Vee – Anonymous Phone Call (1963)
18. Joe South – A Million Miles Away (1969)
19. Ben Folds Five – Your Most Valuable Possession (1999)
20. Kraftwerk – Der Telefon Anruf (1986)
21. Wham! – Battlestations (1986)
22. Sheena Easton – Telephone (Long Distance Love Affair) (1983)
23. Zhané – Request Line (1997)

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Here’s a mix that has been hanging on for a couple of years for completion: Songs about telephone calls. The rule was to choose songs that include some kind of conversation (or monologue) over the phone, preferably with a phone ringing or a call being disconnected. So a song like Abba’s Ring Ring, which is about the notion of making a call, rather than actually making it, is excluded. One song here bends the rule, but one ought to make some allowance for the inventor of the telephone. I might loosen the rules in the follow-up mix, which is in the works.

A bit of trivia: the voice on the other end of the line in Gene Simmons’ song is that of Cher, who at the time was in a relationship with the Kiss goon.

As for the lyrics of the opening song… Bloody Hell!

The mix is, as ever, timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes front and back covers. PW in comments.

TRACKLISTING
1. Stan Mosley – Your Wife Is My Woman (2002)
2. Cadallaca – O Chenilla (1998)
3. Tommy Tutone – 867-5309/Jenny (1981)
4. Nick Lowe – Switchboard Susan (1979)
5. Gene Simmons – Living In Sin (1978)
6. Rupert Holmes – Answering Machine (1979)
7. Alessi – All For A Reason (1977)
8. England Dan & John Ford Coley – I’d Really Like To See You Tonight (1976)
9. The Partridge Family – Echo Valley 2-6809 (1971)
10. Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn – As Soon As I Hang Up The Phone (1974)
11. Tina & Daddy (George Jones) – The Telephone Call (1974)
12. Ernie Tucker & His Operators – Telephone Me Some Lovin’ (1961)
13. Chuck Berry – Memphis, Tennessee (1963)
14. Carl Graves – Baby Hang Up The Phone (1974)
15. Esther Williams – Last Night Changed It All (1976)
16. Yazoo – Bad Connection (1982)
17. Electric Light Orchestra – Telephone Line (1976)
18. Gilbert O’Sullivan & Kirsten Siggaard – Can’t Think Straight (1993)
19. 10cc – Don’t Hang Up (1976)
20. The Sweet – Alexander Graham Bell (1971)
21. Pink Floyd – Young Lust (1979)

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