Call me!

I love big band music.  You know this.  Unfortunately, there are a few tunes are played (and requested) to death.  The anthems, like In the Mood, come to mind.  Another popular song that is oft-requested is Pennsylvania 6-5000.  The song was written by Jerry Gray and Carl Sigman and released in 1940.  The song is a typical fox-trot beat, with opportunities for the band to shout "Pennsylvania six-five-thousand!"

Ever wondered what it means?  I didn't really give it too much thought (there are a lot of songs out there with inconsequential names) until I read about the history of telephones and telephone numbers.  "Pennsylvania 6-5000" is the old telephone exchange system number for the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City.  Telephone numbers have letters on them, as you will have noticed.  The letters were originally placed there for the call exchange system that was used when telephones first came into normal use.  Under the old system, with the old rotary dials, the first two letters of the address were used as part of the phone number.  P and E are 7 and 3, making the phone number 736-5000.  This system was eventually phased out (sometime around the 1970s) as more locations made the system too complex and the letters are now more of a mnemonic aid.

The phone number became a smash hit because the Glenn Miller Orchestra (and many other big bands of that era) played at the Cafe Rouge Ballroom in the Hotel Pennsylvania, and the phone number was the inspiration for the tune.  There are more lyrics for the song, but the only one that anyone ever seems to know is the refrain, "PENNSYLVANIA 6-5-0-0-0!"

A couple of other phone number songs:   

Beechwood 4-5789 by The Marvelettes (1962)
Jenny (867-5309) by Tommy Tutone (1982)

Not to be confused with calling the operator:  Operator --Mary Wells and Brenda Holloway, written by Smokey Robinson  (1965)