During the past years the original Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth has been releasing many new songs that were recorded recently or previously unreleased. His most recent one is really a song that probably no one could guess that he would one day cover it. It’s a cover of Tommy Tutone’s 1981 hit single “867-5309/Jenny”.
However, he used a different title, naming “Jenny Jenny (That telephone song)”. Although it’s really a faithful cover to the original song, it has an acoustic vibe.
Hear the David Lee Roth cover for Tommy Tutone’s “867-5309/Jenny”
The song
Formed in California back in 1978 the band Tommy Tutone released their self-titled debut album two years later in 1980 but their success really came with the song “867-5309/Jenny” from their second album “Tommy Tutone 2” released in 1981. It became their most famous song by far, which makes the band often be called a “one hit wonder” since it peaked at number 4 on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and they never were able to reproduce that success with their other releases.
Curiously, the song was written by a songwriter called Alex Call with the help of Jim Keller, guitarist of Tommy Tutone. But after 40 years of existence that song continues to be played around the world and make people curious about what is the origin of that specific phone number 867-5309.
There are many myths around the origin of that number and some say that Jenny really existed and the number was on a wall but none of that is true. It was something invented by the person in charge for the public relations of the record company who told the band to tell a story like that. It was the songwriter Alex Call who came up with most of the song, including the number. He was sitting in his backyard one day trying to write a song when that number came up. You can read more about that story in this article.