736-5000: "PEnnsylvania 6-5000" by Glenn Miller (New York’s Hotel Pennsylvania, 401 Seventh Ave., 212/736-5000, www.hotelpenn.com still exists at this number)
The old mnemonic system used in the early- to mid- 20th Century in the U.S. took the first two letters of a word and mapped them into two numbers. The notation used for the original "named exchanges" capitalised the first two letters as the only in the exchange name to actually be dialed; in the years leading up to direct long-distance dialing, numbers originally formatted in LIberty9-9999 format became LI9-9999 and then 549-9999 (for example) in preparation for the addition of a prepended area code. The length of numbers, often four or five digits in smaller communities, was also standardised in North America. For easy translation, here are the numbers for each letter (using the modern ITU E 1.161 system that has all the earlier letters in the same place, but adds the Q and Z that were omitted from old telephone dials):
--- ABC: 2
--- DEF: 3
--- GHI: 4
--- JKL: 5
--- MNO: 6
--- PQRS: 7
--- TUV: 8
--- WXYZ: 9
The North American Numbering Plan reserves a portion of the exchange prefix 555- for use in fictitious telephone numbers, in an attempt to prevent the problems caused by the use of real numbers in films, television, or music. The 555- exchange originally contained the directory/information number 555-1212 and little else, allowing a block of fictitious numbers to be reserved across multiple area codes.
Song titles from other countries may use different keypad mnemonics to spell out phone numbers. The number listed for each song should reflect the expected use.
