Who wrote Blondie’s hit song ‘Hanging on the Telephone’?
When it comes to Blondie’s catalogue of hit singles, the song ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ is often overlooked, given that it was the band’s final release before their disco megahit ‘Heart of Glass’. From there, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein and the band never looked back, ushering in the age of new wave that put paid to their punk roots.
‘Hanging on the Telephone’ was the final throes of the band’s CBGB era. Its wiry two-chord verses are underpinned by a bass hook Joy Division would lift for their song ‘Disorder’, released a year later. Its furious tempo, driven by a pulsating drum part, sent Harry pogoing like her British punk counterparts during live performances of the song. The whole thing is over in a little more than two minutes, taking the band’s punk rock credentials with it.
Yet the track wasn’t even their own invention. In fact, it was the only contemporary song they ever released as a single on which none of Harry, Stein, or bassists Gary Valentine and Nigel Harrison have a songwriting credit.
There’s a good reason for the song’s outwardly punkish vibes, even compared to some of Blondie’s earlier hits during the height of punk rock’s brief period as the vanguard of rock and roll. ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ was written and released by a pioneering West Coast punk band two years before Blondie’s version made it onto their third album, Parallel Lines.
So, who was the original band?
The Nerves was a tight-knit trio formed in San Francisco while Blondie were still a novice on the New York scene, and punk hadn’t yet taken hold as a musical movement. They featured Jack Lee on guitar, Peter Case on bass, Paul Collins on drums, and all three on vocals. Their arrival on the West Coast music scene prefigured both the punk rock explosions in Orange County and San Francisco and the advent of power pop bands like The Knack.
Lee was the songwriter responsible for The Nerves’ version of ‘Hanging on the Telephone’, which featured on the band’s only release, a four-song self-titled EP. It sounds almost identical to the cover recorded by Blondie, who, at most, added a thicker guitar sound owing to the extra musicians in their band.
All the same, Blondie’s recording of the track allowed Lee to pay his bills, as the single climbed all the way to number five in the UK charts. Ironically, were it not for the song, Lee would have been left hanging on the telephone himself.
His home utilities provider was about to cut off his services. “They were going to cut off our electricity at six o’clock, the phone too,” he recalls. Right on cue, he received a call from Debbie Harry, asking if her band could cover his song in exchange for a handsome royalty fee.
They say to write about what you know, but Jack Lee inadvertently left himself within hours of having to resort to a phone booth across the hall, just like the one in his song. As it happened, his hit via a band on the other side of the continent sorted him out for life, allowing him to continue making music until his death last year at the age of 71.
