'Jenny' Memoir

Forget all the gossip you've heard about Jenny.

She never dated any member of the '80s rock band Tommy Tutone, and she certainly never changed her number; the girl who got away does not -- and never did -- exist.

"There was no Jenny," songwriter Alex Call admits during a telephone interview from his Nashville home Wednesday. "The number? It came to me out of the ether."

Since late 1981, Call's classic "867-5309/Jenny" has maintained urban legend appeal with its young lust tale of a boy who discovers his crush's phone number scribbled on the wall of the men's room.

The song itself serves as a bittersweet paradox; heavy radio and MTV rotation would catapult the San Francisco band to Top Five status, while the tune's popularity would ruin the lives of those who shared Jenny's phone number. Three decades following the birth of "Jenny", the crank calls continue.

"It was a joke that happened one day," Call remembers of the quick songwriting process. Today the man behind the Tommy Tutone tune puts the finishing touches on his forthcoming rock 'n' roll memoir, For A Good Time Call: 867-5309: I Wrote The Song That Saved My Ass. The 300-page snapshot will span his experiences between 1960 and 1988.

By 1981, Call had already recorded with Elvis Costello and Huey Lewis, and had even gone platinum with a song he wrote for Pat Benatar. But there was just something about Jenny.

Call had the catchy chorus down. The name and the number had seemed to fall into place while he sat beneath a plum tree in his Mill Valley, Ca., backyard, just north of San Francisco. But Call was missing something. He needed verses.

That day Call got a visit from Jim Keller, a well-known guitarist and friend Call had met through the local music scene. Within 20 minutes, the two men had it: I got your number on the wall.

Before long Tommy Tutone were off to Los Angeles, but 32-year-old Alex Call was stuck at home digging ditches for a contractor, publicly unattached to the band's fame that was only beginning to bud. "Jenny" was creeping up on mainstream radio. And suddenly the band wanted exclusive rights to the song.

"There was always a dagger in someone's hand, and it was usually a friend's hand," Call remembers. "Sometimes, it's your best buddy."

Call wasn't about to sign over his share of the writing credits. His decision paid off when Arista Records offered him a deal. His self-titled first album barely hit shelves in 1983 when the deal fell apart. The guy who had signed Call had been fired. Another guy had abruptly quit the label.

The songwriter, now 60, chuckles, "I went from zero to hero to zero in about a year-and-a-half."

Jenny was a work of fiction, but she somehow managed to come between the men in her life.

While the song's opening guitar lick, chord progression and chorus were Call's idea, Keller beefed up the tune's backbone with additional lyrics. The two songwriters agreed on their roles in the composition. It was Tommy Tutone frontman Tommy Heath who, according to Call, created the copyright controversy.

"We did fight over it. Tommy wanted to be part of the song [credits]. But he wasn't." Heath could not be reached for comment.

Even with the band's success realized, Tommy Tutone would later refuse to record another Call-penned song, "You Never Really Loved."

"It would have been perfect for them," he says.

Still, every time "Jenny" plays, she pays. Even today. Record sales are down, and those '80s compilations have lost steam, but the royalty checks have never stopped coming. Call splits a sum with several people each time an FM station spins "Jenny": roughly 12 cents.


That's when 30-second television spots have come in handy. "It's a real good place for songwriters to get money out of their catalogues," Call explains.

Hits from the '80s have recently featured in television ads, many selling a taste of the old school while those who recall the hits -- many no longer considered "thirtysomethings" -- eat it up. A new Ore-Ida advertisement serves up a snippet of Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noize" cover. And a nationwide Benjamin Franklin Plumbing commercial presents a rendition of "867-5309/Jenny."

Call continues to compose and record music in Nashville -- and the only lady in his life is named Lisa. The married couple have performed their album, Passion & Purpose, at a number of healthcare conferences across the country.

Call's next project involves polishing those final chapters of his rock story by the end of August.

She may have saved his ass, she's nothing more than the hypothetical heroine of a three-minute teen angst anthem.

"Jenny's just a good rock 'n' roll name."

-P.F.