filed under History
Boston DJ Dials My Heart With Telephone Song
1:11PM ON
12/12/2009
BY
Matthew Lawrence
I got a new phone the other day, and I’ve been racking my brain trying to pick out a perfect ringtone. I decided that my ideal ring would be the old jingle from New England Telephone, because it’s catchy and short and old-timey and also related to telephones. If my phone rang in public I would not be embarrassed by that the way I might be if I opted for, say, my second choice. Also, I get jingles from my childhood stuck in my head sometimes. (See also: that one about how brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh.)
And that’s when I found this amazing thing:
It was made by Boston DJ Luis Nieves just last month, and features a sped-up sample of the phrase that ended each of the company’s heartfelt, earnest, and often quite dramatic commercials. I wouldn’t say it makes for a great song, exactly, but considering the large and tacky realm of nostalgic club remixes, I have to say I don’t really mind this one.
Now if only some enterprising DJ would get on the Block Island Ferry jingle…
December 12th, 2009 at 3:05PM
Jason Says:
Pertinent fact: The NET jingle “We’re the one for you New England…” is a pentatonic scale. You can play it on the black keys of a piano.
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December 12th, 2009 at 7:05PM
Caitlin Says:
Matthew: are you and I the same person? I sang the “brown eggs are local eggs” song in the office the other day and everyone looked at me like I had 6 heads. I also have a fairly extensive collection of NET commercials saved as favorites on YouTube not just because I love the song (I do - Part of the Nynex Family”) but because they are so CLASSIC:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k8QE5BY3e0
And to second Jason’s comment above, that’s why it was the first thing I ever learned how to play on the piano - mainly because the black piano keys were the only ones that worked on the old broken-down garage-piano my parents had!
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December 13th, 2009 at 6:51AM
wess Says:
Heh. I grew up in Connecticut, with SOUTHERN New England Telephone (SNET), an entirely unrelated company — the modern version of the original New Haven Telephone Company, the second-oldest in the country (after Chicago) and the oldest in continuous service (starting sometime in the 1870s). Which is why New Haven still has the widest toll-free dialing in the state. There, we had an entirely different set of ads, also with a memorable tagline (”We go beyond the call.”) and jingle. (Though apparently, none of these are preserved on YouTube.)
One funny thing about them was that they were really keen on people saying the letters, instead of “Snet,” or, as most of us did, “Snet-Co.” I worked for them for awhile, as a Directory Assistance operator (”What city, please?”), and they apparently reasoned that whether they could control the people of Connecticut, they could at least control their own employees. In the elevators and several other places were small signs saying, “S-N-E-T — There’s only one way to say it.” If you were caught saying “Snet,” you were scolded, and if you were caught saying it over the phone you could be disciplined. Really.
SNET finally sold out a few years ago to SBI, a national firm based (where else) in Texas. I had no idea how spoiled I was until I left Connecticut. SNET maintained about two walk-in offices around the state, many of them with 24-hour lobby access. You could take as many phone books as you wanted, and dump your old ones in a row of special reclamation bins out front. You could buy or rent telephone gear and supplies over the counter, buy books about wiring and switches, or sit down with an account consultant — or call a rep, from a bank of phones.
Know how many offices like that Verizon has in Rhode Island? None. In fact, they don’t have a single customer office anywhere, in any state. They don’t want to know you. And, irony of ironies, good luck getting them on the phone. As I told my friends back home, it’s no coincidence that when you call them, you get Darth Vader on the other end.
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wess replied:
December 13th, 2009 at 6:53AM
Oops. Where I said “about two walk-in offices” above: I meant TWO DOZEN.
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December 13th, 2009 at 7:38PM
Sheri Says:
Matthew Laurence, you are my hero!
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May 20th, 2010 at 9:01PM
boston dj Says:
oh yeah! old jingle from New England Telephone is catchy and short and old-timey and aside from that i can say that this one is cool! haha
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