He's on the Phone

"He's on the Phone"
Single by Saint Etienne
from the album Too Young to Die
B-side
  • "Groveley Road"
  • "Is It True"
  • "The Process"
  • "How I Learned to Love the Bomb"
Released30 October 1995 (1995-10-30)[1]
Genre
Length5:10
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
Saint Etienne singles chronology
"Hug My Soul"
(1994) 		"He's on the Phone"
(1995) 		"Sylvie"
(1997)
Music video
"He's on the Phone" on YouTube

"He's on the Phone" is a song by British pop group Saint Etienne in collaboration with French singer-songwriter Étienne Daho, released in October 1995 by Heavenly and MCA as a single from their third compilation album, Too Young to Die (1995). A fast-paced dance track, it is one of Saint Etienne's biggest hits, reaching number 11 on the UK Singles Chart, number 31 in Iceland, number 41 in Sweden and number 33 on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs chart. The lyrics tell of an "academia girl" trying to escape from a relationship with a married man: He's on the phone / And she wants to go home, / Shoes in hand, / Don't make a sound, / It's time to go. At the centre of the track is a spoken-word section by Daho.

The song is a remix by Motiv8 of "Accident", which appeared on the Saint Etienne/Étienne Daho Reserection EP, released a few months previously in June 1995. "Accident" itself is a rewritten version of Daho's 1984 French-language hit single "Weekend à Rome", with original English lyrics. Daho's spoken-word vocals are from the Reserection opening track, "Reserection".

The single was credited to "Saint Etienne featuring Étienne Daho". Daho also appears in the song's music video, which was directed by Paul Kelly, and joined the band in their performance of the song on Top of the Pops. He would also go on to perform the original "Weekend à Rome" lyrics with the instrumentation from "He's on the Phone" in a performance on the French edition of Star Academy. The single also had the honour of being Pete Tong's essential tune on Radio One.[4]

  1. ^ "New Releases: Singles" (PDF). Music Week. 28 October 1995. p. 43. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  2. ^ Ewing, Tom (12 November 1999). "29. Saint Etienne – "He's On The Phone"". Freaky Trigger. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
  3. ^ Bradley, Larry (November 4, 2014). "The 1990s: Saint Etienne - "He's on the Phone". The Alternative Jukebox. Cassell. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-84403-789-6.
  4. ^ "Motiv8 Break Out With New Release" (PDF). Music Week, in Record Mirror (Dance Update Supplemental Insert). 14 October 1995. p. 2. Retrieved 13 May 2021.