The Greatest Payphone Songs of All Time

I used to love lists. One of the original inspirations behind creating the Payphone Project was my love of lists, and the gentle pace of random knowledge acquired while browsing an arbitrary assortment of information. By cataloguing public telephone numbers I found a strange beauty in seeing stories rise up from what was essentially a phone book. I imagined that traditional telephone books had infinitely more stories lurking under the orderly text matter on the page, if only there was a way to summon them.

Yes, I loved lists, but so, it seems, did a lot of people. Like many little genres the Internet has ruined the list. Today one routinely confronts weirdly lengthy lists badly in need of editing: “87 Reasons You Are a Loser For Not Using ____ Operating System.” “297 Operas You Must See Before You Die.” “128 Coupons To Help You Start Drinking.”

Nevertheless, despite the disintegration of the genre of the list, I have one to share. In form (if not in substance) this may be the perfect list, because it has only 2 items. Those 2 items are THE GREATEST PAYPHONE SONGS EVER RECORDED.

Part of what makes these two songs great payphone songs in my mind is that the payphone is implicit, and unnamed. The top 2 payphone songs of all time (in my opinion) never once use the word, or any word, stating that the song takes place in a phone booth. These songs are from when payphones were ubiquitous, and needed no introduction or excuse. Once commonplace telephonic behaviors of operator-assisted calls, coin-fed long distance calls, and even collect calls are now rare, but for generations these terms were in the vernacular of all Americans.

CONTESTANT #1 FOR THE GREATEST PAYPHONE SONG OF ALL TIME

Jim Croce’s “Operator” opens with the singer placing operator-assisted call to a person whose phone number he can no longer read.

Operator, well could you help me place this call?
See, the number on the matchbook is old and faded

The chorus includes another line directed at the telephone operator, who appears to be looking for the phone number whilst the caller waxes poetical:

Isn’t that the way they say it goes?
Well, let’s forget all that
And give me the number if you can find it
So I can call just to tell ’em I’m fine and to show
I’ve overcome the blow, I’ve learned to take it well
I only wish my words could just convince myself
That it just wasn’t real
But that’s not the way it feels

He obtains the phone number from the operator, but now seems unwilling, or unable to use it. He opens up to the operator, obliquely referring to the tears that form in his eyes when he thinks of the woman, of the love that he thought would save him.

Operator, could you help me place this call?
Well, I can’t read the number that you just gave me
There’s something in my eyes, you know it happens every time
I think about a love that I thought would save me

In addition to connecting your call, telephone operators used to be available for incidental chat and conversation, or even just the time of day. In this song we know nothing of what the operator says, or if s/he is even listening to the caller’s ruminations.

Dialing 0 from a payphone these days seems to be a gateway to murky worlds of exorbitantly over-priced local, long distance, and collect calls.

Operator, let’s forget about this call
You see there’s no one there I really wanted to talk to
Thank you for your time, ah, you’ve been so much more than kind
And you can keep the dime

CONTESTANT #2 FOR THE GREATEST PAYPHONE SONG OF ALL TIME

Contestant #2 is “Sylvia’s Mother,” the first hit single by Dr. Hook. “Sylvia’s Mother” was written by Shel Silverstein, who appears in this video:

This tear-jerker tune does not benefit much from analysis of the lyrics. Only one line makes this a great payphone song:

“And the operator said 40 cents more for the next three minutes”

This refrain, repeated several times during this song, gives this song the real-time feeling of an operator assisted telephone call. I’ll discuss this more in the following section in which I announce the winner of this prestigious award.

THE WINNER OF THE GREATEST PAYPHONE SONG OF ALL TIME IS…

If I had to choose one song over the other as the greatest payphone song of all time I would give this prestigious award to “Sylvia’s Mother,” by Dr. Hook.

I made this important decision after some thought on the matter. “Operator” is, hands down, a better, more perfect song. The lyrics of “Operator” comprise far greater verse than “Sylvia’s Mother”, the music is more eloquent and elaborate than the 2 or 3 chords found in the Dr. Hook song, and “You can keep the dime” is probably the greatest line of payphone poetry ever written.

But in this case I look past matters of technical finesse, listening instead for the spirit of payphones and the grittier side of telephone communications. Payphones and public booths are dirty places, and in that sense “Operator” could be said to have romanticized the phone booth — a narrow, claustrophobic, often foul-smelling column of enclosed space toward which I think most modern day nostalgia is mis-directed.

What I think makes Dr. Hook’s “Sylvia’s Mother” a greater payphone song is the repetitive urgency of the refrain,

“And the operator said 40 cents more for the next three minutes”

This song feels like an operator-assisted payphone call. That refrain, repeated almost insistently throughout the song, evokes the once-common intrusions of operators into calls made from public telephones, reminding me of the countless times my payphone calls ran long. When that happened I either shoveled more coins into the beast or else wrapped up my thoughts quickly before getting cut off.

The refrain also evokes memories of the belching noise made by a payphone in need of more money. So many times in the early 1990s I used to hear that half-swallowing, half-vomitous sound of the payphone’s money-hungry innards, punctuated by a pre-recorded beefcake voice interrupting the conversation with “Excuse me. Please deposit 40¢ to continue your conversation.”

Some would call “Sylvia’s Mother” maudlin, hokey, even laughable. I would not disagree with such assessments. Yet the sappiness of the song’s lyrics detract nothing from how this song feels like a desperate call made from a phone booth. And the picture this song paints of parents intercepting phone calls from their child’s spurned romance is timeless.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Anybody with a search engine at hand can find numerous other songs which use the words “phone booth,” “pay phone”, and so on. I did not need to do that. I only searched the Internet after compiling most of the items on this list of Honorable Mentions. I considered all of the songs on this list but felt that, as payphone songs, they came up short when compared to my top 2.

Robert Cray’s “Phone Booth” almost made my list, and maybe it will make the list one day, but for now I just can’t decide. Cray is an acquired taste to begin with (so many of his songs have a weird way of morphing from smoky blues into Andrew Lloyd Webber-like melodies). The song “Phone Booth”, about a man looking for love by calling a woman whose number he found etched on the wall of a phone booth, paints a well-hued picture.

Sesame Street’s “Telephone Rock” features a puppet-stuffed phone booth which houses a classic 3-slot rotary dial payphone and a rockin’ good time had by all:

The Broadway musical “Rent” includes a short song called We’re Okay, featuring a caller caught between calls on a cell phone and a pay phone. It is too much of a trifle to make it onto any list of all-time great songs, but the scene strikes me as strangely prescient. Intentionally or not it looks like this scene from “Rent” presaged the shift from payphones to cell phones for people on the move.

I like Primitive Radio Gods’ “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand”, but it’s not really a payphone song. Nothing in it (except for mention of a phone call) suggests that a phone booth is present anywhere but in the title (and in the video).

Johnny Maestros’ “Phone Booth on the Highway” is a pretty hot blues song, but the phone booth is only a prop.

Bob Luman’s country-western song “The Pay Phone”, telling the story of a rendezvous gone wrong after being arranged through pay phone calls, is not a bad little tune if you enjoy incongruously upbeat-sounding tear-jerkers about wanton infidelity. But the titular pay phone is incidental to the story.

ELO’s “Telephone Line” might involve a payphone, but if it does then its presence is too obscure to make my list. I formerly thought of “Telephone Line” as a payphone song, but on closer scrutiny I don’t find any tell-tale evidence of payphonery in the lyrics. The singer makes an operator-assisted call, imploring the telephone operator to “let it ring forever more”, but operator-assisted calls are not limited to payphones. Without reference to coin-deposits or other signal payphone behaviors I can’tthis a payphone song. And for as fine a song as it is I don’t think “Telephone Line” stacks up to “Operator” on artistic merits, though it does rival “Sylvia’s Mother” in capturing the mood (and also the sound world) of operator-assisted calls.

That’s all for now. If you have suggestions for more great payphone songs you can contact me here.