Hello, This Is Joanie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song) by Paul Evans

Album: The Paul Evans Songbook (1978)

Charted: 6

License This Song

lyrics

Songfacts®:

This song is about a guy who gets into a fight with his girlfriend after they've been drinking. She leaves angry and drives home, and when he calls her the next day he gets her answering machine. When he calls back, he learns that Joanie crashed her car and died on the way home.
Paul Evans was known for his novelty hits "Seven Little Girls (Sitting In The Back Seat)" and "Happy-Go-Lucky Me," which he recorded in 1959 and 1960. This song was starkly different, but it caught on in the UK and at US Country radio stations, providing Evans with his first hit in nearly 20 years. He told Songfacts: "I did a trick on the guitar, and I was writing to that trick. It's a way I play chords way up on the neck of the guitar. I couldn't write a lyric to it - my cowriter's the one that came up with the lyrics, and that was Fred Tobias. It was a death song, for sure."
This song was ahead of its time in using the answering machine as a lyrical device, as answering machines were still very rare in 1978. Over the years, the theme of leaving a message became very common in song lyrics.

Comments: 5

Steve from NottsCountry artist Lea Jane Berinati sang the vocals
Mark from CheshuntWho provides the voice of joanie?
Barry from Sauquoit, NyHere's some obscure trivia:
On February 21st 1878, the residents of New Haven, Connecticut received copies of the first telephone directory issued in the U.S.A.
It contained only 50 names on a single page.
Yvette from Dartmouth,devon, EnglandI havent heard this song for YEARS but i find myself singing it!!weird.
Paul from Chester, EnglandMy name is Paul Evans born in 1978 SPOOKY!!!

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Life Is A HighwayTom Cochrane

Tom Cochrane wrote "Life Is A Highway" to pull himself out of a funk following an exhausting humanitarian trip to Africa.

ProblemAriana Grande

Ariana Grande's hit "Problem" started off as a track written by One Direction songwriter Savan Kotecha. He gave it the working title of "The Whisper Song," after a 2005 Ying Yang Twins hit.

BadMichael Jackson

Wesley Snipes played the rival gang leader in Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.

Hash PipeWeezer

MTV wanted Weezer to record a version of their song "Hash Pipe" as "Half Pipe" to appeal to the skateboarding crowd. The band refused, and MTV listed the song as "H*** Pipe."

Dixie ChickenLittle Feat

The Dixie Chicks got their name from the Little Feat song "Dixie Chicken." In 2020 they became "The Chicks" because Dixie refers to the American South in times of slavery.

CruiseFlorida Georgia Line

Florida Georgia Line's "Cruise" spent 24 weeks on top of the Country chart - the most ever until Sam Hunt's "Body Like a Back Road" was #1 for 34 weeks. The record was previously held by Eddy Arnold's "I'll Hold You in My Heart (1947-48), Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On" (1950-51) and Webb Pierce's "In the Jailhouse Now" (1955), which each led for 21 weeks.