Fans of Masterpiece Theatre’s Downton Abbey, set in 1910s England, can probably recall the scene with this new gadget called “the telephone.” With great fanfare the phone is installed downstairs and the head of the house staff lifts it to his ear to practice.
“Hello,” he says, awkwardly. “This is Mr. Carson, the butler of Downton Abbey. To whom am I speaking?”
There is an air of nostalgia afoot in the new song and video for the Maroon 5 song “Payphone” that made me think of this period drama. While Adam Levine and company have ready access to phones now, there was indeed something special about communicating when it wasn’t quite so easy.
And, well, reaching out to someone isn’t always easy, even with ubiquitous mobiles. Music and phones have been coming together now for a quite a few years, and mostly it’s been in some romantic, longing kind of way.
Here are a few tunes worth picking up.
Glen Campbell, “Wichita Lineman.”
Called the first existential country song, this bittersweet ballad was written by Jimmy Webb in 1968 as he drove past endless telephone lines in Oklahoma. Eventually he spotted a solitary lineman on a pole and he imagined the telephone conversation. He was the lonliest man he had ever seen.
Rufus Wainwright, “Vibrate.”
Sure, your phone could ring, but for Wainwright, it could move. From his 2003 release Want One, this is a song about the progress of phones and the lack of progress in a relationship.
Blondie, “Hanging on the Telephone.”
A cover of a song from a trio called the Nerves, it became a big hit for Blondie on the classic 1978 album Parallel Lines. Essentially: I’m obsessed with you, please answer the phone because I’m going to call until you answer.
The Replacements, “Answering Machine.”
Sure, the answering machine saved us the trouble of endlessly calling someone on the phone, but what do you say? Paul Westerberg pondered this very question in this song from the album Let It Be.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, “Sylvia’s Mother.”
Another one of those amazing Shel Silverstein tunes, this one concerning a man trying and trying to reconnect to a lost love by calling her mother. It’s sad and depressing and, apparently, true.
Ludacris, “Area Codes.”
The life of a rapper is very complicated, and keeping track of all your "friends" can be confusing. Luckily for Ludacris, phone numbers come with area codes to help you out.
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