Songfacts®:

• In 1982, the same year Tommy Tutone gave us "Jenny (867-5309)," The Time dialed in with another phone number song, this one funky as all get. The songs have very different storylines. In "Jenny," the guy sees the phone number on a bathroom wall and takes his shot; in "777-9311," The Time lead singer Morris Day gets right to the point, seeing a lovely lady and asking for her phone number, which see supplies. Looks like he's in for a good night.
• The Time was created by Prince, who wrote the song along with Morris Day. Prince also produced the song and played all the instruments, although the drum machine - a Linn LM-1 - was programmed by David Garibaldi, drummer for Tower Of Power, according to Jesse Johnson of The Time, who also cleared up the origin of the phone number in a Facebook post. It was the home phone number of Dez Dickerson, a guitarist in Prince's band. As you can imagine, his phone started ringing after the song was released. "he was very pi--ed at us all," says Johnson.
• Members of The Time didn't play on the song, but that's because Prince was a one-man show, not because they didn't have the talent. That was evident when the group performed live, always electrifying the crowd.
  
  The Time lineup from this era included Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who were starting to write and produce for Klymaxx and The S.O.S. Band. Their first hit came in 1983 with "Just Be Good To Me" by The S.O.S. Band; it was around then that they left The Time. Jam and Lewis went on to transform Janet Jackson's career with her Control album and also clock hits for The Human League, Johnny Gill and many others. Their stay in The Time was formative; they returned to the group for various reunions.
• "777-9311" was on the charts in October 1982, the month Prince released his breakthrough album 1999; the title track, released as the first single, went to #44 in December, but it was his next single, "Little Red Corvette," that put him in the fast lane, climbing to #6 in May 1983.
  
  As for The Time, their first album was issued in 1981 and had a minor hit with "Cool," written by Prince with Dez Dickerson. "777-9311" was part of their second album, What Time Is It?, released in 1982. Their next album, Ice Cream Castle, came out in 1984, the same year Prince released Purple Rain. "Jungle Love" was the big hit, going to #20 in February 1985, sharing space on playlists with Prince's "I Would Die 4 U." Remarkably, Prince had other irons in the fire as well. He wrote the highly controversial Sheena Easton hit "Sugar Walls" and put out an album by The Family, another group he assembled and produced. Their song "The Screams Of Passion" went to #63.
• Prince used The Time as an opening act, bringing them along on his Controversy tour in 1981 and on his 1999 tour in 1982, where another Prince group, Vanity 6, were also on the bill. According to Jimmy Jam, Prince rehearsed The Time hard and even offered input into their stage moves. They had some beef when Prince told Jimmy he'd have to do the choreography from behind his keyboard, but Jam went with it, finding a way to dance and play at the same time. The Time also appear in Prince's movie Purple Rain.