Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
867-5309/Jenny (1981)
Back with another one-hit wonder, although in the case of Tommy Tutone, that's not actually true. Everybody (including me until 5 minutes ago) thinks that "867-5309/Jenny" is the band's (it's a band, not a dude) only hit, but they actually had a top 40 song a year earlier with "Angel Say No," which hit #38 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Nevertheless, the group is known for one song and one song only.
The band was formed in San Francisco in 1978 by Tommy Heath (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards), Jim Keller (lead guitar) and Terry Nails (bass). The band name came from Heath's nickname. Over the years, the band has had many different bassists and drummers, and indeed on their second album, Tommy Tutone 2, Jon Lyons and Victor Carberry play bass and drums, respectively, on side 1's five songs and Lonnie Turner and Rick Cutler perform those duties on side 2.
Side 1 featured the band's big hit, "867-5309/Jenny." The song had a mythology built around it, with both Heath and Keller claiming it was written about a real woman whose number was written on a men's room wall. But co-writer Alex Call said in a 2004 interview that he came up with the idea of Jenny and the phone number while sitting in his backyard, and then his friend Keller suggested the number was written on a bathroom wall.
Kicking off with a great riff, the song features Heath singing about Jenny.
"Jenny Jenny, who can I turn to?/You give me something I can hold on to/I know you think I'm like the others before/Who saw your name and number on the wall/Jenny, I've got your number/I need to make you mine/Jenny, don't change your number/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309."
The song led to a fad of people dialing the number to see if Jenny was there. People who had the misfortune of having the number would report getting bombarded with calls, even as much as 20 years after the song came out.
"Jenny Jenny, you're the girl for me/Oh, you don't know me but you make me so happy/I tried to call you before but I lost my nerve/I tried my imagination but I was disturbed/Jenny I've got your number/I need to make you mine/Jenny, don't change your number/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/867-5309/I got it (I got it) I got it/I got your number on the wall/I got it (I got it) I got it/For a good time, for a good time call."
It took a while to get some traction, but once the song started getting radio play, it would get plenty of requests. The song got as high as #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Rock Top Tracks chart; the album hit #20 on the Billboard 200. It's one of those undeniably '80s songs
Tommy Tutone released another album, National Emotion, in 1983, but it didn't get much promotion from Columbia and barely cracked the Billboard 200. The band broke up after the album came out and didn't reunite until 1996; they released albums in 1996 and 1998. The latest album came out in 2019. Heath is the only original member left in the band.
The song has been covered by many artists, including Fitz of Depression, Everclear and even David Lee Roth.
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