Puddles Pity Party is Mike Geier, known as Big Mike Geier and he is a singer, entertainer, and leader of the band Kingsized. Performing as the clown-costumed Puddles Pity Party, Geier is known for appearing in YouTube videos since 2013, including with Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox.
He releases nice cover versions of many rock and roll classics, the most recent one is from Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line”, that he made a mashup with Adele’s “Hello”.
Read what he said about the version:
“Call me old fashioned but I miss the way we used to reach out and touch someone. It’s just not the same since beepers and fax machines came along.”
Hear the cover below:
The song
The song is track two on ELO’s 1976 album, A New World Record, and was the final single to be released from the album until September 2006, when “Surrender” was released from the expanded reissue of the album.
It became their biggest single success in the US and was their first UK gold award for a single. With ELO’s continuing success in America it seemed obvious to Jeff Lynne to use an American ring tone during the song. Writer/guitarist, Lynne explained:
“To get the sound on the beginning, you know, the American telephone sound, we phoned from England to America to a number that we know nobody would be at, to just listen to it for a while. On the Moog, we recreated the sound exactly by tuning the oscillators to the same notes as the ringing of the phone.”
The song charted in the Top Ten in both the UK and the US, peaking at number 8 in the UK and number 7 in the US. The tune was on the Hot 100 for 23 weeks, nearly a full month longer on that chart than any other ELO tune.
Billboard ranked it as the No. 15 song of 1977. In 1977, the song would reach number 1 in New Zealand and Canada. “Telephone Line” and Meri Wilson’s “Telephone Man” were back-to-back on Hot 100’s top 40 for two non-consecutive weeks in the summer of 1977.
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