The Girl On The Phone by The Jam

Album: Setting Sons (1979)

License This Song

lyrics

artistfacts

Songfacts®:

This lighthearted Setting Sons opener finds Weller singing of a girl who won't stop telephoning him and seems to know everything about the frontman. When Uncut asked Weller if the song was about a real female stalker, he replied: "That song came from sitting in our office in Shepherd's Bush with an acoustic guitar because we needed two more songs for the album. I just knocked out 'Girl On The Phone' and 'Private Hell.'"

He added: "The title is from a Roy Lichtenstein pop-art painting called Girl On The Phone."
Setting Sons was a somewhat rushed effort. As the deadline approached, Weller was still two songs short. "I remember sitting in an office with just a tape recorder and a chair and a guitar," he recalled to Mojo magazine. "It felt a bit like the Brill Building. So I wrote 'Private Hell,' then I wrote 'The Girl On The Phone,' the same day as well."

Comments: 1

Sanfrandan from San Francisco, CaIn the 1980s, a woman who said her name was Miranda Grosvenor called a long list of famous men, engaging them in long conversations but never meeting them in person. Billy Joel was one who would engage, even leaving songs on her answering machine. "She gave good phone," he told Vanity Fair. I always thought this song was about her, even though I've never seen anything tying her to Paul Weller. I will say: I can't find evidence of a Lichtenstein painting with that title (although there is one of a woman on the phone, called "Ohhh...Alright..." because that's what she's saying in the painting). Weller saying he just dashed it off must be covering up the true story. I think it's Miranda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_Grosvenor

see more comments

More Songfacts:

Foolish GamesJewel

A guy Jewel fell for when she was 16 inspired her hit "Foolish Games."

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and UnderstandingElvis Costello

"(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding" was written by Nick Lowe in 1974. The original version with his group Brinsley Schwarz was kind of somber, but Elvis Costello made it a classic with his 1978 uptempo take.