hello this is joannie

Paul Evans’ single Hello this is joannie is a sensational double novelty record, as well as being a very catchy tune, which is probably the most important thing about it. It has the novelty effect of, firstly, celebrating the advent/ availability of the telephone answering machine; secondly, being a grisly death song utterly belied by the jauntiness of the sub-disco pop of the tune (the bass in the opening verse - sweaty!) and production (perhaps that’s the fourth impressive thing about it – it’s jaunty yet gruesome/ morbid). I remember having the song explained to me by a friend, before I’d actually heard it (funny how often this happens, still). The explanation had to start with a rundown of the concept that some people now had these devices that answered the telephone for you if you were out (later another friend lent me a tape of a Bob Dylan bootleg, including a song he put on his answering machine; so the first answering machine message I ever heard apart from Joannie's was Bob Dylan's). What I didn’t realise was that such devices had existed in some form since the 1920s, when messages would be recorded onto a wax disc; certainly it wasn’t a piece of technology that particularly excited me in itself. The explanation then went on to describe the song as being about a man whose girlfriend dies in a car accident and he calls her number to keep on listening to her voice. It is sick. ‘Hello this is Joannie’ begins with a strummed guitar, a ring tone and then the answering machine message itself – it’s the chorus, and it’s the only time that it’s not included as part of the narrative; while its inclusion at that early point is strategic and clever, it does disrupt the flow. The first chorus is Evans’ character telling us that he and Joannie spent some time (‘last night’) at his house. He (not she, apparently) got drunk (‘I drank a little too much red’) and they fought. When she left in anger, Evans’ song persona was left bereft (‘I felt so damn bad’). He calls her the following morning and receives the answering machine message – the chorus again. He leaves a message for her: ‘Joannie I’m sorry and I’m feeling oh so small’; later, he calls again – chorus two (well, three really) during which Evans ‘oohs’ anxiously. We are then treated to a short middle 8 guitar solo, indicating a fraught waiting period, and then the music takes a step back as Evans lets us know that when the phone finally rings it’s not Joannie, as he hopes, but ‘a friend’ who tells him Joannie has been killed in a car accident. It was, apparently, due to angry driving: I never should have let her drive home angry from my place I’ll never hold her again and kiss that funny face A lightbulb, however, goes off above his head. He realises he can still hear her talking if calls her answering machine, another chorus, during which he riffs ‘I’m so sorry Joannie’, the most poignant part of the whole. Like some of the very best pop music, the whole record explores a deeply tragic (what the Victorians would have called ‘pathetic’) story with absolute flippancy. There is a hint of Hitchcockian obsession about the tale, though of course the events conveyed, including the final calling of the answering machine, take place in a very short space of time (under 24 hours, almost certainly). What is most confronting in ‘Hello this is Joannie’, however, is the absolute bouncingness of the tune, which might almost be called saccharine but for the tuff rubbery bass which provides bountiful structure and support from the outset (but particularly in the opening 30 seconds).. I have never seen a video clip for the song, or a video of a live performance – should check YouTube – but I can only imagine that it couldn’t go down very well; Evans already sounds too joyous on the record, without visual confirmation. I can only imagine the way that the song could be interpreted visually is in some total subversion of the story; for instance, with Joannie still alive and gaily singing to Evans over the phone while her many glamorous friends silently try not to cack themselves in the background. Any other interpretation would require the people who made that long Renaldo and the Loaf video. I must say I feel the song does Joannie a disservice. Sure, road rage is an issue, but the distinct impression one gets is that her anger was Evans’ narrator’s fault, not Joannie’s, and it was the compliant way she tacitly allowed Evans to upset her so completely that her anger distracted her from proper road behaviour. I know what you’re saying – perhaps I’m doing Joannie a disservice; we’ll probably never know. Evans is on record as saying there was no Joannie in real life, which does her a further disservice if you ask me. The song made no. 10 in Australia in 1979; Evans had already had two hits in this country, twenty (!) years earlier, in 1959 and 1960. He also wrote songs for Elvis, including the b-side of 'Are you lonesome tonight', which is something to mention. http://www.paulevans.com/