Who you gonna call? ‘Beechwood 4-5789’

What’s the most memorable telephone number in pop music history? It’s probably Beechwood 4-5789. Can you sing along with the Marvelettes? 

The song “Beechwood 4-5789” was released in 1962. It was written by Motown heavyweights Marvin Gaye, William “Mickey” Stevenson and George Gordy. 

The song’s title is derived from the now-defunct use of telephone exchange names in telephone numbers. In this case, the significant portions of the exchange name were the first two letters of “Beechwood” (BE), and the remainder of the number. 

In a more modern environment, this telephone number would be listed numerically only as 234-5789. 

The pioneering Motown female group that became the Marvelettes was organized by Gladys Horton, the lead singer, and some of her classmates at Inkster (Mich.) High School, near Detroit.

 

(Sticking with the “communications” theme, the Marvelettes had an even bigger hit with “Please Mr. Postman.”) 

Another great telephone song also debuted in 1962. It was “Don’t Hang Up” by The Orlons. Rosetta Hightower at Overbrook High School in Philadelphia was the lead singer. She was backed up Shirley Brickley and Marlena Davis. Stephen Caldwell sang bass.

 

The song is about a “misunderstanding” between two young lovers and the girl reminds her fella:

 …Making up is fun to do;

Don’t hang up;

…No one else will ever do but you;

Don’t hang up, oh don’t you do it now.

(The Orlons also had a national hit, “The Wah-Watusi,” which triggered the Watusi dance craze.) 

The late Russell Shaw, author and contributor to the ZDNet business technology news website, affiliated with CBS, had his own list of favorite telephone songs.

 

Among them was “Rocky Top,” first recorded by the Osborne Brothers in 1967. “The song is a city dweller’s lamentation over the loss of a simpler and freer existence in the hills of Tennessee,” Shaw wrote. Here’s a short verse: 

Wish that I was on ol’ Rocky Top

Down in the Tennessee hills.

Ain’t no smoggy smoke on Rocky Top;

Ain’t no telephone bills.

Shaw also liked the country telephone hit “Here’s a Quarter (Call Someone Who Cares),”written and recorded by Travis Tritt in 1991.

In the song, the woman has left her man, but has regrets and now wants to “include herself in his life once again.” However, Tritt sings that the guy no longer trusts her because of her “Runaround Sue” lifestyle and infidelities. 

So, he flips her a quarter (the common price for a local pay telephone call in 1991) and tells her to phone someone who cares to listen…or words to that effect. 

(Pay phone calls started out at 5 cents, then bumped up to 10 cents, before settling at 25 cents by the mid-1980s. Soon, they will all be nostalgic relics of a bygone area…or restored, reclaimed and repurposed.)