22. “Tulsa Telephone Book”

Tom T. Hall, In Search of a Song (Mercury, 1971);
composed by Tom T. Hall

Between socking it to the “Harper Valley PTA” (Jeannie C. Riley had the hit with it in 1968) and extolling the exceedingly marketable virtues of “little baby ducks and old pickup trucks,” Tom T. Hall developed a country music niche with a singular style of blank verse reportage in which he would recount his personal interactions with the non-famous until the quotidian words simply stopped, as if he was just extemporizing the songs on the spot. It worked better when the reportage crowded out the dull homilies he too often leaned on to “sum it all up,” but I still think it was the fundamentally corny sincerity of his approach that fueled the deadpan insanity of this “novelty” tune, which outstrips peak Roger Miller and Bobby Braddock walking away. Poor Tom describes the emotional aftermath of a one-night stand that leaves him frantically searching for a woman he knows only as Shirley by reading the namesake city’s telephone book thirteen times in a row, and duly warning listeners that “If you don’t know any last names, it ain’t much fun.” The joke ensnares multiple levels of discourse without blinking. It has no equivalent in any other musical genre.

Note: 25 secular essays (each one exactly 200 words long) about 25 songs, originally intended to appear one per day during Advent (or so) from Dec. 1 through Dec. 25, now extended to Twelfth Night (or so).