Are you too young to get Wichita Lineman ?

It's just the most incredible blend of lyrics that anyone can make their own, a haunting melody, a sweeping arrangement and the most perfect human voice to ever sing a pop song. How can one not get it?

 

The best version for me was the one I heard coming out of the AM radio in our family's Country Squire in about 1969. Has stayed with me ever since.

 

Cool...I just bookended a comment by SH.

 

It's a beautiful song. What's not to like?

 

I feel personally offended to have to read the title of that song.

Reported.

Personally offended.

 

I have been fascinated by this song for 50 years...and I don't even own a copy of it.

 

Wellll......his version of "The Moon's A Harsh Mistress" in a duet with Charlie Haden is gorgeous.

 

Can someone start a thread about" Galveston"?

 

I vote you.

 

The acoustic lead guitar as in the middle eight at the 1:50 mark? That was a Fender VI bass used.
Overall, the increased presence of the acoustic guitar is very nice.

To the OP, I was 10 when it was released. I remember riding my bike to the local record store to buy the single. Didn't seem like old folks music to me at the time. I just remember loving the melody and haunting arrangement. The lyrical appreciation came much later in life.
Still a favorite to this day.

 

Well ....today is my birthday and I am at least a bottle of Italian wine in so....not tonight. But soon perhaps.

 

I have loved this and other Campbell and/or Webb songs since first hearing them back in college (early 1990s) and early 20s. I am 46 now and listen to Lineman often.

 

He may be thinkin of the lead break in Galveston?

 

Galveston by Glen Campbell: How do I get that guitar sound? »

 

Happy Birthday

 

From.... Behind The Song: "Wichita Lineman" « American Songwriter »

"In a recent interview, Glen said that he and DeLory filled in what might have been a third verse with a guitar solo, one now considered iconic. He still can recall playing it on a DanElectro six-string bass guitar belonging to legendary L.A. bass player and Wrecking Crew member Carol Kaye. It remains Glen’s favorite of all his songs."

 

First time I remember hearing it was a Meters cover on the Struttin album. Had no idea what the lyrics are about. I'm 48 and it hit me hard about 10 years back. I can't imagine being a teenager and caring for it though. All I cared about back then was Led Zep, Rush and the mighty Van Halen

 

Not dated. Timeless.

 

Even before Jimmy Webb wrote the song, people were already saying everything had already been written about in song. This is the first and only song I've ever heard about a telephone lineman.

 

I'm 25 and absolutely love Glen Campbell.

 

Who me? Nope, definitely talking about Wichita Lineman.

 

" ‘Wichita Lineman’ is a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts."-- Billy Joel

 

Fills me with emotion. My dad bought this and I own it now. I can feel those times when I hear this song. I was seven when this was released...

 

Good read:

Behind The Song: "Wichita Lineman" « American Songwriter »


"Why did such an unlikely song become a standard? There are many reasons, but here’s one: the loneliness of that solitary prairie figure is not just present in the lyric, it’s built into the musical structure. Although the song is nominally in the key of F, after the tonic chord is stated in the intro it is never heard again in its pure form, with the root in the bass. The melody travels through a series of haunting changes that are considerably more sophisticated than the Top 40 radio norms of that era. The song never does get “home” again to the tonic – not in either verse, nor in the fade-out. This gorgeous musical setting suggests subliminally what the lyric suggests poetically: the lonely journeyman, who remains suspended atop that telephone pole, against that desolate prairie landscape, yearning for home."