Ring-a-Ding-Ding

EVERY SO OFTEN, the neglected house of music literature is adorned with a fresh coat of paint. The Pushbutton Telephone Songbook is the latest example. Out of nowhere comes this slim but precious volume, this musical breath of fresh air that gives readers the same sense of joy an infant feels eating warm pablum on a cold winter morning.

Here, in a mere 42 pages, are the words to 36 popular songs, complete with the sequence of numbers one must push to turn the ordinary pushbutton telephone into a musical instrument. The songs range from the patriotic:

5 5 6 1 5 9

My coun-try, 'tis of thee

0 0 8 0 8 4

Sweet land of lib-er-ty

8 4 2 4

Of thee I sing

to the romantic:

4 8 8 4 8

Stran-gers in the night

4 8 6 8 4

Ex-chang-ing glances

Variety, which is the spice of life, is also the spice of this thin treasure chest. There are old southern ballads, drinking songs and nursery rhymes. To flip through the pages is to feel like a child in a candy store on a lazy spring afternoon.

Sadly, the book does not reflect the enormous contribution that foreigners have made to the development of music. Only two of the 36 songs--"Frere Jacques" and "Au Clair de la Lune"--were not written by Americans. The book, for example, includes the work of Al Jolson ("California Here I Come") but ignores that of Wolfgang Mozart ("Symphony No. 39 in E flat," "The Marriage of Figaro"). Nowhere in the songbook is the music of Ludwig van Beethoven ("The Fifth Symphony," "Missa Solemnis"), another talented foreigner. In fairness to editor Michael Scheff, it must be noted that Beethoven disliked the telephone and refused to compose for it. (Late in his life, Beethoven is reported to have smashed his quill down on his writing table and shouted, "This damn phone is no damn use. It never rings!") But while the dearth of foreign compositions might be understandable, it is no less regrettable. Reading the book, one feels the same sense of loss a young man feels after missing his train home on a steamy summer evening.

One can also quibble with Scheff's interpretation of some classics in this collection. His "Old MacDonald Has a Farm" starts strongly (6667887), but after the first "EE-I-EE-I-OHH" (99004) loses all the melody of the original and becomes a toneless and repetitive fake (44444/44444/444444/444444). Similarly, his "Pop Goes the Weasel" begins promisingly, but fizzles fast. (Music historians will always wonder why Scheff chose a 5 for the "pop" in the song's last line. The "pop" was meant to surprise and delight listeners. Would not the higher-pitched 0 or # have served that purpose better than the flat 5?)

But despite its shortcomings, The Pushbutton Telephone Songbook (volume one) is a tour de force that makes us cry "Encore!" for volume two. After finishing this book, it is not hard to feel the emptiness of a feeble old man who realizes, in the loneliness of the night, that the best pages have long since been turned.

8 4 4 4 5

Should auld ac-quain-tance

8 4 8

be for-got

9 1 4 3 9 #

In days of auld lang syne