Tell Him I'm Not Home

Being out of the reach of any telecommunication device for a week feels incredibly indulgent in this era of constant contact and interminable twitter. It can also create a nostalgic yearning for the days when a telephone was not a mobile device, but rather tied its owner to a place and provided them with an air of mystery which meant that the owner of a number such as Beechwood 45789, or 634 5789, could choose to not be 'in' when that phone rings right off the wall.

Soul song writers of the early 1960s understood the telephone as a device that could be used as a come-on or a rejection, encapsulating a world of wanting in the miles of wire that linked one person to the object of their desire. Songs that revolved around the telephone generally played on the pleading aspect of that simple phrase, 'Call Me'. Lucky guys or girls could get a 'private number' while unlucky callers could  ask an 'Operator' to connect them with a reluctant lover, although as the great Chuck Jackson understood, you could just as easily get the message, 'Tell Him I'm Not Home'.

Chris Montez and Astrud Gilberto bossa-nova'd their separate versions of the same 'Call Me' written by Tony Hatch in 1965 (Astrud liked 'phones), while Aretha Franklin and Al Green slow soul-stirred their different, self-penned  songs of the same title in the early 1970s, but probably the best-known disco song demanding a telephone chat was co-written by Giorgio Moroder and Debbie Harry. Blondie's 'Call Me' came about because Donna Summer didn't want to work on a song for a 1980 movie titled American Gigolo (she was a devout Christian, and was already regretting her moaning performance of 'Love To Love You Baby'). Donna's loss was Debbie's gain, and the song hit the top of the charts around the world. Blondie had demonstrated their penchant for telephonic communication in 1978 with 'Hanging On The Telephone', of course.

Like all the previously mentioned songs, Blondie's 'Call Me' is a cry to a distant lover to get in touch, albeit expressed to a slightly more uptempo backing than Aretha, Al, Shirley Brown ('Woman To Woman'), Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes ('Miss You'), Bootsy Collins ('What's A Telephone Bill?'), or Peaches & Herb ('Reunited')—Tavares' 'Whodunnit' mentions a telephone, but only in order to "call Sherlock Holmes". It wasn't until the 80s that telephone songs really became dance songs. Sadly, Anita Ward's 'Ring My Bell' has no telephone references in the lyrics.

In 1981 Luther Vandross' debut single (and album title track) 'Never Too Much' added bpm to the telephone's role as instrument of heartbreak and desire. Unfortunately Village People (Mk II) kept the bpm but made the telephone an object of ridicule in 1985 with 'Sex Over The Phone', but thankfully Pet Shop Boys made the telephone an instrument of isolation and abandonment with plenty of bpm in 'Left To My Own Devices' in 1987. More recently of course Lady Gaga (and Beyoncé) have made 'Telephone'. Despite the advent of the cell (mobile) telephone and its promise of 24-hour access, Gaga's lack of receptivity 'in the club' is a negation of human connectivity that echoes Chuck Jackson's 'Tell Him I'm Not Here'. Five decades on and the telephone is still a symbol of imagined, desired, virtual love for something we can't have. So let's dance anyway.

P.S. Anyone got any other telephone-related songs to add to this?