Like to here it goes...

August 5, 2008 9:02 AM

How did songs come to be called 'numbers'?

...as in, "Here's a little number I picked up back in New Orleans," or, "for my next number I'm going to play 'Goodnight Irene'"?

posted by Pecinpah to writing & language (13 comments total)

Wild guess: Because songs are listed/accessed by number in jukeboxes?
posted by Bromius at 9:09 AM on August 5

I know old jazz big bands had books of hundreds of songs that were labeled by number. The bandleader would call out a number, and that's how they knew what to play. That's just another guess, though.
posted by rjacobs at 9:11 AM on August 5

Wikipedia sez:

The term is applied also to sections of large vocal works (such as opera, oratorio, or musical) when the written or printed score for such a work designates the titles of the pieces with sequential numbers, hence the aptness of the term. The use of numerical designations in extended vocal musical works has the practical advantage of facilitating rehearsal plans, especially when their designations include assignment of characters.

Doesn't sound like a slam dunk to me, but it's a place to start.
posted by grobstein at 9:12 AM on August 5

OED has a couple suggestive entries:

b. Each of a collection of songs or poems. Obs.
1842 Southern Lit. Messenger Feb. 167 We are under no small obligation to Longfellow for embodying so many cheering views of existence in such musical numbers. 1878 R. L. STEVENSON Inland Voy. 119 There was a number in the hawker's collection called Conscrits Français, which may rank among the most dissuasive war-lyrics on record. 1894 Westm. Gaz. 21 Feb. 3/1 There are only 28 numbers in the little book, but none of them is quite insignificant, while many contain really memorable lines and stanzas.

5. a. An item in a programme of (musical) entertainment; (sometimes) spec. each more or less distinct section of an opera, oratorio, etc. Also (more generally): any song or tune.
1865 tr. L. Spohr Autobiogr. I. 72, I now expected that..all those ‘Numbers’ in which Titus has to sing, would be omitted. 1874 Catholic World Sept. 787 The director of the music should..sacrifice even the most admirable musical numbers to the exigencies of the ceremonial. 1891 Guardian 23 Sept. 1531 The names of the singers of all the solo numbers. 1900 E. E. PEAKE Darlingtons i. 2 After a rattling number by the band, a brief address by the Mayor, and another rattling number by the band, a neatly dressed, handsome man..advanced to the front of the platform. 1908 L. M. MONTGOMERY Anne of Green Gables xix. 214 Only one number on the programme failed to interest her. 1920 P. G. WODEHOUSE Jill the Reckless (1922) xi. 161 He's put over any amount of shows which would have flopped like dogs without him to stage the numbers. 1948 Penguin Music Mag. Feb. 25 The B.B.C. could start..by putting some kind of check on the manner and matter of their inane songs{em}‘numbers’ I think they call them. 1984 A. COPLAND & V. PERLIS Copland: 1900-42 x. 261 The music is divided into ten ‘numbers’, with the spoken scenes taking away the necessity for recitative. 2001 Vanity Fair May 218/2 Some of the first songs Dylan wrote himself{em}a handful of Guthrie-style ‘talking blues’ numbers and the poignant ballad ‘Song to Woody’.

posted by grobstein at 9:14 AM on August 5

Indexing sheet music by numbers is useful for the same reason that indexing Chinese menus this way is (I guess). A number is more concise, pronounceable and explicit label than a title.
posted by rongorongo at 9:23 AM on August 5

Having performed quite a bit, I can say with some confidence that any song (or scene with a song) that is being performed live can be called a "number". It's slang, it doesn't mean or refer to anything specific besides "part of the show."
posted by crickets at 9:36 AM on August 5

I believe it comes from Fake Books and similar - "Now we're going to play Number 42"...
posted by benzo8 at 9:44 AM on August 5

Back in my HS jazz band/pep combo days, we each had a folder filled with hundreds of charts and scores. Each song had a numbered tab on the side. If a particular song struck our director as appropriate, he would look up the title on his master sheet, shout out "35!" and expect us to have it up in less than X seconds. This saved having to wait on twelve people to look through their folders alphabetically, and also kept us from having to realphabetize our folders whenever new charts came in.
posted by Benjy at 9:50 AM on August 5 [1 favorite]

Thanks, all, for the answers so far.

I understand the fake/repertoire book numbering system as a possible origin, but I've heard people use the term who would seem to pre-date this or be somewhat removed from its applicability (Son House, Leadbelly, and Bukka White, specifically). Maybe I have erroneous notions of when and where jazz became formal enough to use books, but I was wondering if there might be another possible origination point.
posted by Pecinpah at 10:21 AM on August 5

i do not have your answer, but thank you for asking this question, as i was wondering the same thing just the other day. (i was also wondering how dresses came to be referred to as numbers, as in "that's a nice red number she's wearing"). hence, i will be watching this question closely.
posted by millipede at 10:25 AM on August 5

The early OED citations do predate jazz and the blues. Here's the story they suggest: in song collections, or musical pieces with distinct sections, the individual songs or sections were numbered and came to be called "numbers" for this reason. Performers would use this nomenclature to describe what they were doing as they moved from "number" to "number." Gradually, they began to apply it to sets where the pieces were not all part of the same selection or overarching piece. This is the modern usage.
posted by grobstein at 10:29 AM on August 5

Hymnals are indexed by number, and its a tradition I presume predates jazz.
posted by motorcycles are jets at 11:57 AM on August 5

I'm pretty sure that this comes from Opera as the wikipedia article suggests. There is such a thing as a 'number opera'. Here's a good description:

NUMBER OPERA — this is a term for an opera consisting of individual sections called ‘numbers’ which consist of the arias, duets, ensembles and recitatives that make up the entire opera. A number opera is distinct from any opera that is 'through-composed', or that has a sense of continuity from its beginning to its end. Rossini's The Barber of Seville is a number opera; Verdi's Otello is a continuous whole, with no 'numbers' or individual sections that stand alone.

From here. I'm fairly sure that this usage dates back to the 19th century.
posted by ob at 12:52 PM on August 5