The name of the band suggested a phalanx of indie-rock instrumentalists, instead of a single guy messing around with some synths and samples. “They” released a hit single with one of the wordiest titles of the 90s, a title that never appears anywhere in the lyrics. As 90s one-hit wonders go, “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand” by Primitive Radio Gods features the unlikeliest of origins. It’s a DIY effort, one that succeeds in part by ignoring any preconceived notions of what a big single should be.
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A One-Man Band
When you’re recording something with no expectations, it can take the pressure off and cause the muse to take you in surprising directions. In 1991, Chris O’Connor was dealing with the realization that rock stardom might not be in the cards for him. His band, the I-Rails, had recently gone kerplunk after a few years together.
O’Connor decided to try a departure, making a record on his own in the basement studio of a friend. The album, which included “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand” (let’s call it “Broken Phone Booth” from here on out for brevity’s sake), was entitled Rocket. He saw it as little more than just an excuse for him to learn how to use the sampling equipment.
Nobody showed much interest in the album, so O’Connor went out and got a day job and largely put his pursuit of a music career on hold. In 1994, he decided to give it another go, so he sent the tapes of Monster out to some studios. Eventually, he got a bite from Columbia Records. And they earmarked “Broken Phone Booth” as the lead single.
Samples and Surprises
So much was strange about “Broken Phone Booth”. O’Connor had snatched the title almost word for word from a song on a 1978 album by Canadian artist Bruce Cockburn. He built the song around a sample of a B.B. King live recording of a song called “How Blue Can You Get”. You can hear church bells now and again. A sprightly piano solo comes rolling through at one point against the backdrop of the preset hip-hop beat.
When the label signed O’Connor, he balked at putting Rocket out under his own name. He thus chose the name Primitive Radio Gods, which was taken from the title of one of the I-Rails’ songs. Speaking of them, he hired a couple of their former members to fill out the band and help him tour the record.
Thanks to placement in the movie The Cable Guy, “Broken Phone Booth”, which was finally released in 1996, gave the band a hit. They wouldn’t produce another one, but this song has earned a permanent place on cool 90s playlists everywhere.
Behind the Lyrics of “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand”
Over four verses, Chris O’Connor ponders the imponderables of life. He begins by putting the spotlight on a girl dealing with her own inner turmoil.
“Jan lays down and wrestles in her sleep,” he sings.
In the second verse, the narrator and this girl fall into their familiar combative patterns: “We sit outside and argue all night long / About a god we’ve never seen, but never fails to side with me.”
O’Connor indulges in absurdities and surrealism in the lyrics. Those detours make the direct lines hit even harder, such as when he muses about the way he spends his time.
“And if I die before I go to sleep / Can money pay for all the days I spent awake but half asleep?”
In the end, he decides that all you can do is just let life pull you along where it may: “You ride the waves and don’t ask where they go.”
In the song’s closing moments, O’Connor snaps out of his monotone voice to emote the chorus that King has been singing throughout the song: “I’ve been downhearted, baby / Ever since the day we met.”
It’s a bravura moment in a song full of engaging oddities. And it feels like the moment that Primitive Radio Gods’ “Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand” makes its way from charming surprise to bittersweet wonder.
Photo by Joe Pugliese/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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