Vol. 35: When Your Biggest Song Becomes Someone Else’s Hit
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Listen to the audio edition of DMM Vol. 35 below.
If you know the song “Hanging on the Telephone,” you probably hear Debbie Harry’s voice when you think of it. Blondie opened Parallel Lines with the song in 1978, and their version went to No. 5 in Britain.
Two years earlier, a California band called the Nerves had already put it out on a four-song EP. Their guitarist, Jack Lee, wrote it.
Lee later told the British music magazine Mojo that when Debbie Harry called about recording the song, his electricity and phone service were due to be cut off that evening.
By the time Blondie’s version took off, the Nerves had split up. The cover gave Lee a breakthrough as a songwriter, and his former drummer, Paul Collins, hoped it might give the band a reason to get back together.
Before Debbie picked up the phone
The Nerves formed in San Francisco in 1974. Jack Lee played guitar, Peter Case played bass and Paul Collins played drums. All three wrote songs and sang.
Collins had heard “Hanging on the Telephone” before the band even got going.
In a recent SPIN interview, he recalled answering a drummer-wanted notice shortly after arriving in San Francisco. Lee played him the song, and Collins tapped along on a phone book instead of a drum kit.
Case remembered Lee pushing them to simplify their arrangements, keeping the emotion while stripping away anything unnecessary. They wanted short songs that got to the point.
Their four-song EP came out in 1976. Lee contributed “Hanging on the Telephone” and “Give Me Some Time.” Case wrote “When You Find Out,” and Collins wrote “Working Too Hard.” They released it themselves, with distribution through the independent label Bomp!
Before we go any further, their original version of “Hanging on the Telephone” is worth hearing.
Especially if you’ve only ever heard Blondie’s.
It’s already an effective little record. The urgency is there. The hook is there. The whole thing feels impatient, which is pretty appropriate for a song about trying to reach somebody.
You can hear why another band would want it.
You might also wonder why the Nerves couldn’t get anywhere with it themselves.
Taking the band to the people
The Nerves moved to Los Angeles and began organizing their own shows. In 1977, they booked a cross-country tour without a manager or booking agent, appearing with bands including the Ramones and Devo.
Think about what that meant before email, social media or a smartphone.
Every booking required finding somebody who might put you on, reaching them, convincing them and figuring out how to get there. You still had to perform when you arrived.
In a 2022 interview with VWMusic, Collins described trying to arrange support dates with the Ramones. Their manager, Danny Fields, offered them several Texas shows if Collins could help secure a Cincinnati booking.
Collins got a club on the phone. Fields took over the conversation, made the arrangement and honoured the deal.
For a young band doing practically everything themselves, that was a meaningful break. It also showed them what having someone in their corner could accomplish.
But the tour never turned into the career they were chasing.
By 1978, the Nerves were finished. They’d made a record, taken it across the country and played alongside bands that were building careers of their own. They still hadn’t found enough support to keep going.
How the record found its audience
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, who later fronted the Gun Club, helped bring “Hanging on the Telephone” to Blondie’s attention.
The discovery has accumulated a few variations in the retelling, but Blondie drummer Clem Burke also credited Pierce with sending the band a tape containing the song.
Blondie recorded the song for Parallel Lines, and Lee retained the songwriting credit. The royalties later helped finance his solo album.
That matters, because it would be easy to tell this as a story about a successful band taking something from an unsuccessful one.
The cover gave Lee an audience and an income from a song he’d already worked hard to get heard. It also gave him a way to make more music.
Collins was hoping for something else.
Could the hit bring the band back?
When Blondie’s version came out, Collins imagined it might finally bring the Nerves recognition, industry support and perhaps a reunion.
“I’m thinking that we’re going to get back together again,” he told VWMusic.
It didn’t happen.
I can understand why he’d have thought it might.
You spend years trying to convince people that your band has something. You make the record, book the shows and do the travelling. Eventually, you stop.
Then somebody else records one of your songs, and the audience responds.
You’d have every reason to be pleased. You might also wonder what would’ve happened if that response had arrived while the band was still together.
For Lee, there was a songwriting credit and royalty income. Collins, who hadn’t written “Hanging on the Telephone,” was looking at what the attention might do for the group they’d built.
The success of the song couldn’t automatically deliver that.
Most listeners weren’t going to work backwards through the credits to find the Nerves. They heard Debbie Harry, liked the record and remembered Blondie.
That’s how most of us listen to music. We connect with the version we hear, often without knowing how it got there.
You probably know another Jack Lee song
There’s a good chance “Hanging on the Telephone” isn’t the only Jack Lee composition you know.
Remember Paul Young’s “Come Back and Stay”?
That was his too.
Young’s version became a British hit in 1983, giving Lee another success as a songwriter through somebody else’s recording.
Think about how different those two records sound. Debbie Harry’s urgent delivery on one. Paul Young’s soulful voice on the other.
Both songs came from the same writer, whose own name would be unfamiliar to plenty of people who could sing along.
It makes me wonder how many musicians we’ve been listening to for years without realizing it. Their work becomes part of our lives, while their names stay in the smaller print.
Lee continued writing and recording until his death in 2023, aged 71.
His former bandmates kept making music too. Case formed the Plimsouls, and Collins formed the Beat. The Nerves had been a short chapter in three much longer working lives.
A chance to hear the rest
On October 23, Third Man Records released The Nerves: Best Collection, bringing together studio recordings, demos and live material.
Collins, Case and Lee’s daughter Cynthia were involved, and original source recordings were located for the release.
For listeners who only know the band through Blondie, it offers a chance to hear what else they were doing.
That’s what interests me about revisiting this story now. We already know “Hanging on the Telephone” worked. Blondie settled that question a long time ago.
The more interesting question is what we missed by never getting past it.
The Nerves had three songwriters. Their EP gave each of them room. Yet a lot of us could go through decades of listening to music without hearing any of those four recordings.
Blondie’s version deserves its place. It also gives us a useful starting point.
Put on the Nerves’ original. Then let “When You Find Out” play. Try “Working Too Hard.”
For once, we can be the audience they were trying to reach.
Listen to the Playlist
Hear the Nerves’ original “Hanging on the Telephone” alongside Blondie’s version, plus more songs with unexpected origins.