Cherry3-9522 was our house phone # when I was a lad. And while I appreciate the modern tech with cell phones etc I must admit, as a writer of song and stories, poetry, I miss letter writing. I still write on a yellow pad with a pen rather than a word processor. I love writing letters and have always found the idea that whomever gets a letter gets something the writer touched- a cool connection. But, here I am sitting in a parking lot texting this note. Go figure...
Love the irony. I still write all my lyrics with pen and pad. I love the lack of structure. The computer has its place in writing, especially on the go, but it is restricting. Sometimes I wanna scribble all over the page.
There is a lot of history associated with the way the phone number 'Pennsylvania6-5000' is written! In the early 20th century, phones were assigned numbers using up to 4 digits (party line numbering worked a little differently). The amount of digits depended on the area. For example: a small community would have a phone number like '22' versus a larger community would have a phone number such as '1234'. However, as the amount of subscribers increased, the format of the number changed to a 2L-5N format. This is the format that Pennsylvania6-5000 follows. In the phone book, the number is written as PEnnsylvania6-5000. The same goes for Beechwood4-5789: BEechwood4-5789. But what is BEechwood and PEnnsylvania? These are exchange names which represent the names of the telephone office which served the community. In San Antonio, the exchange CApital served the downtown area. If your number was CApital6-3232, you would know that the number was located somewhere in downtown San Antonio (give it a call! It is one of the last time and temperature numbers in the United States!). As more and more people used the telephone, All Number Calling (ANC) was introduced sometime in the late 60s. This changed PEnnsylvania6-5000 to 736-5000 and BEechwood4-5789 to 234-5789 leaving exchange names in the past.
The Mereki song is nice- but that's a tough gig to go against the 'Mats!
Also, how about songs that use a telephone as an instrument?
My favorite being Penguin Cafe Orchestra's Telephone and Rubber Band: https://open.spotify.com/track/0wsJLHodMH1rVpVcKaharX?si=ebf505841cb04cd2
Followed by Space Hog's sampling of this song.
Maybe ELO? https://open.spotify.com/track/3SPcBPzvbmWLl8NU5efx4W?si=9bf157f1246d4aed
Or this might be a separate genre of songs that use the "telephone effect" or a sample of a phone ringing and a staged phone call.
I bet there are a ton of them, a book's worth of material, surely. Haha, nice topic, thanks.
The new song has yet to be the old song in the poll
Cherry3-9522 was our house phone # when I was a lad. And while I appreciate the modern tech with cell phones etc I must admit, as a writer of song and stories, poetry, I miss letter writing. I still write on a yellow pad with a pen rather than a word processor. I love writing letters and have always found the idea that whomever gets a letter gets something the writer touched- a cool connection. But, here I am sitting in a parking lot texting this note. Go figure...
Good piece here.
Love the irony. I still write all my lyrics with pen and pad. I love the lack of structure. The computer has its place in writing, especially on the go, but it is restricting. Sometimes I wanna scribble all over the page.
There is a lot of history associated with the way the phone number 'Pennsylvania6-5000' is written! In the early 20th century, phones were assigned numbers using up to 4 digits (party line numbering worked a little differently). The amount of digits depended on the area. For example: a small community would have a phone number like '22' versus a larger community would have a phone number such as '1234'. However, as the amount of subscribers increased, the format of the number changed to a 2L-5N format. This is the format that Pennsylvania6-5000 follows. In the phone book, the number is written as PEnnsylvania6-5000. The same goes for Beechwood4-5789: BEechwood4-5789. But what is BEechwood and PEnnsylvania? These are exchange names which represent the names of the telephone office which served the community. In San Antonio, the exchange CApital served the downtown area. If your number was CApital6-3232, you would know that the number was located somewhere in downtown San Antonio (give it a call! It is one of the last time and temperature numbers in the United States!). As more and more people used the telephone, All Number Calling (ANC) was introduced sometime in the late 60s. This changed PEnnsylvania6-5000 to 736-5000 and BEechwood4-5789 to 234-5789 leaving exchange names in the past.
Fascinating! Thank you for this history
Yeah totally. I feel like you catch some lyrics mentioning them sometimes but no one’s dropping it in the title