867-5309/Jenny

1981 hit song by Tommy Tutone, in which the singer yearns for a girl (the aforementioned Jenny) whose name and telephone number (867-5309) he's found written on a wall. Can he get up the nerve to call her?

(this may be nothing more than an urban legend, but it is very much still worth noting):

Many people were angered by this song, as stated briefly above. Among them was a police chief's daughter, who happened to be named Jenny. The exchange 867 does exist here in the greater Seattle area. Numbers with 5309 as the last four digits of that exchange are now blocked, supposedly.

I heard that this song created such an outrage, that tons of people complained to the band to issue some sort of message with their song. The band, high on the success of the song, refused. As a sort of justice, a well read music magazine (the specifics as to which I am not sure of) posted all the personal and work phone numbers of the band members for people to call and harass. Today, such an outcry would not go unheard, in the light of our lawyer moderated culture. But, there seems that justice has been heard: Tommy Tutone, was definately a one-trick pony.

Brown University used the 863- phone prefix for a while, but they ran out of numbers in 1999. So they made 863- administrative, and added 867- for student numbers.

Two Freshwomen, neither named Jenny, ended up with 867-5309. Several weeks after the changeover, one of them was quoted in the Brown Daily Herald saying:

It's so annoying. It's the worst number to have in the world. It's as if they are really expecting Jenny to pick up the phone.

They were receiving several "stupid" messages per day, and many hang-ups. Some people would play the song into their answering machine, others would ask for Jenny, while some guys would leave their own phone numbers.

So the girls were given a different phone number.

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The integer 8675309 is prime. You can't make this stuff up.