867-5309 (Jenny)

"867-5309/Jenny" is a 1981 song written by Alex Call and Jim Keller and performed by Tommy Tutone that was released on the album ''Tommy Tutone 2'', on the Columbia Records label. It peaked at No. 4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in May 1982, and No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in April 1982.

The song led to a fad of people dialing 867-5309 and asking for "Jenny".

Creation

Lead guitarist Jim Keller, interviewed by ''People'' in 1982, said: "Jenny is a regular girl, not a hooker. Friends of mine wrote her name and number on a men's room wall at a bar. I called her on a dare, and we dated for a while. I haven't talked with her since the song became a hit, but I hear she thinks I'm a real jerk for writing it."

On March 28, 2008, Tommy Tutone lead singer Tommy Heath stated on the ''WGN Morning News'' that the number was real and it was the number of a girl he knew. As a joke, he wrote it on a bathroom wall in a motel where they were staying. "We laughed about it for years," he said.

However, in a June 2004 interview with ''Songfacts'', co-writer Alex Call explained his version of the song's real origins:

"There was no Jenny," Call also told a Tampa, Florida, columnist in June 2009. "The number? It came to me out of the ether."

In the music video, the "Jenny" character is played by Karen Elaine Morton.

Popularity and litigation

The song, released in late 1981, initially gained popularity on the American West Coast in January 1982; many who had the number soon abandoned it because of unwanted calls.

Asking telephone companies to trace the calls was of no use, as Charles and Maurine Shambarger (then in West Akron, Ohio at [phone]) learned when Ohio Bell explained: "We don’t know what to make of this. The calls are coming from all over the place." A little over a month later, they disconnected the number and the phone became silent.

In some cases, the number was picked up by commercial businesses or acquired for use in radio promotions.
* In 1982, WLS radio obtained the number from a Chicago woman, receiving 22,000 calls in four days.
* In 1982, Southwest Junior High School received up to two hundred calls daily asking for Jenny in area code 704.
* Brown University obtained the +1-401-867 prefix in 1999, assigning 867-5309 to a student dormitory room which was promptly inundated with nuisance calls.
* A February 2004 auction for the number in a New York City code was shut down by eBay after objections from Verizon; bidding had reached $80,000. The US Federal Communications Commission takes the position that most phone numbers are "public resources" that "are not owned by carriers or their customers" but did not rule out the number being sold as part of a business.
* A subsequent February 2004 auction for the number in area code 800 and 888 listed Jeffrey Steinberg's Philadelphia business JSS Marketing for sale, including both numbers as part of the bundle. This circumvents eBay restrictions which prevent selling the numbers on their own.
* In 2004, Weehawken, New Jersey resident Spencer Potter picked up the number for free after discovering to his surprise that it was available in the 201 area code, hoping it would improve his DJ business. Unable to handle the overwhelming volume of calls, he sought to sell the number on eBay in February 2009. Although bids reached $1 million, his inability to confirm the identity of the bidders led him to sell it privately to Retro Fitness, a gym franchise with a location in Secaucus, New Jersey

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