Are you too young to get Wichita Lineman ?

Bing was older, 'square' and a bit too wholesome - Glen was not. Bing was still very visible to us kids in the 60's via the TV show and annual specials, movies, and especially during Christmas time on the radio.

 

Glen Campbell was not "ol' Glen Campbell" in 1968. "Wichita Lineman" was released in 1968.

 

Great song that in a way is timeless. I am 60 now but have loved the song since I was in my twenties
Imagine pitching this song idea in 1968: There’s this guy who works on telephone poles in the middle of Kansas. He’s really devoted to his job. Rain or shine, he’s committed to preventing system overloads. It’s really lonely work, and he misses his girlfriend. Does this sound like a hit to you?

When Jimmy Webb wrote the first lines of “Wichita Lineman”…

I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road
Searchin’ in the sun for another overload
I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line

… not only did he not think he had a surefire hit, he didn’t even think the song was finished. An inauspicious beginning for a song that sold millions of records for Glen Campbell, has been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to James Taylor to R.E.M., and appears on several lists of the greatest songs of all time.

In late 1967 Jimmy was just about the hottest songwriter in L.A., based on two consecutive monster hits: The Fifth Dimension’s “Up, Up And Away,” and Glen Campbell’s “By The Time I Get To Phoenix.” “Phoenix” had been on the charts for six months, although Jimmy and Glen still hadn’t met.

“For all we know, ‘Phoenix’ could have been a one-off thing,” Jimmy told me recently. “Glen might never have recorded another song of mine.” They finally met at a jingle session. Soon after that date, the phone rang. It was Glen, calling from the studio. “He said, ‘Can you write me a song about a town?’” Jimmy recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know … let me work on it.’ And he said, ‘Well, just something geographical.’

“He and (producer) Al DeLory were obviously looking for a follow-up to ‘Phoenix.’ And I remember writing ‘Wichita Lineman’ that afternoon. That was a song I absolutely wrote for Glen.”

It was the first time he had written a song expressly for another artist. But had he conceived any part of “Wichita” before that call?

“Not really,” Jimmy says. “I mean I had a lot of ‘prairie gothic’ images in my head. And I was writing about the common man, the blue-collar hero who gets caught up in the tides of war, as in ‘Galveston,’ or the guy who’s driving back to Oklahoma because he can’t afford a plane ticket (‘Phoenix’). So it was a character that I worked with in my head. And I had seen a lot of panoramas of highways and guys up on telephone wires … I didn’t want to write another song about a town, but something that would be in the ballpark for him.”

So even though it was written specifically for Glen, he still wanted it to be a ‘character’ song?

“Well, I didn’t want it to be about a rich guy!” he laughs. “I wanted it to be about an ordinary fellow. Billy Joel came pretty close one time when he said ‘Wichita Lineman’ is ‘a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts.’ That got to me; it actually brought tears to my eyes. I had never really told anybody how close to the truth that was.

“What I was really trying to say was, you can see someone working in construction or working in a field, a migrant worker or a truck driver, and you may think you know what’s going on inside him, but you don’t. You can’t assume that just because someone’s in a menial job that they don’t have dreams … or extraordinary concepts going around in their head, like ‘I need you more than want you; and I want you for all time.’ You can’t assume that a man isn’t a poet. And that’s really what the song is about.”

He wasn’t certain they would go for it. “In fact, I thought they hadn’t gone for it,” he says. “They kept calling me back every couple of hours and asking if it was finished. I really didn’t have the last verse written. And finally I said, ‘Well, I’m gonna send it over, and if you want me to finish it, I’ll finish it.’

“A few weeks later I was talking to Glen, and I said, ‘Well I guess Wichita Lineman didn’t make the cut.’ And Glen said, ‘Oh yeah! We recorded that!’ And I said, ‘Listen, I didn’t really think that song was finished …’ And he said, ‘Well it is now!’”

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.

“Wichita Lineman” can serve as ‘Exhibit A’ in any demonstration for songwriters of the principle of ‘less is more.’ On paper, it’s just two verses, each one composed of two rhymed couplets. The record is a three-minute wonder: Intro. First Verse. Staccato telegraph-like musical device. Second verse. No chorus. Guitar solo. Repeat last two lines of second verse (“and I need you more than want you …”). Fade. There is no B section, much less a C section.

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.

 

Glen's version is the undisputed benchmark, IMO, but I'm a big fan of Freedy's version too. Here it is live with some really tender guitar pickin'...

 

It seems like you guys may have missed dumangl's point.

 

I don't get the 'age' angle. Just seems like creating arbitrary barriers for oneself. A great song is a great song is a great song. Loved it first time I heard it, probably when I was about 10 years old in the early 70's. Glen got a lot of respect in our house and it took me about 5 minutes to work out that Jimmy Webb was an incredible songwriter, and Campbell a brilliant singer and interpreter. I never gave a thought as to whether it was 'cool' to like this.
I recently picked up a Japanese pressing of Glen's hits with Webb. It kept Tame Impala's latest off my turntable for a good few days, with ease... People who haven't heard Campbell sing Webb are missing out, however old they are.

 

This is a good question. Even though I had no personal experience with linemen, I was young when kids could still imagine such people.

In other words, the job description currently sounds like something better performed by an app of some kind rather than being staffed by an actual human being.

Don't we have Google Earth to perform such tasks?

Another problem is that there is no real power in small principalities like counties anymore. Same goes for states.

 

No, didn't miss the point, just making an off topic comment. Should have labeled it as such. Sorry if you're upset.

 

I'm including Isaac's in the "any other version" list, définitivement.
(Hayes is hero of mine, incidentally, but I never worshipped his covers from the 69-73 period - with a few exceptions I think his original songs work better)

 

Nope. Not upset at all.

 

Are you too young to get Wichita Lineman ?

 

Im 43. Its never done much for me. Its a pleasant enough song, but never grabbed me. I love classic country, I was at the REM show where their b side was recorded. I don't think age has anything to do with it really.

 

"Prairie Gothic" - I like that comment from Jimmy Webb.

 

I do love that. That whole album is wonderful start to finish and highly under rated although recently I see some credit going to it

 

We're living in an era where fiftysomethings buy Lollapalooza tickets and people in their twenties buy 70s classic rock on vinyl.

I don't think age makes a blind bit of difference these days. Or not like it used to.

 

Here is another needle drop. The record is cut quite hot for such a mellow song.

 

I'm 40, and I think it's a great song. I became a big Glen Campbell fan a few years ago. This was definitely one of the songs that made me a fan, as well as By the Time I Get to Phoenix. His vocal tone, phrasing and emotion are impeccable.

A song that gets better with age.

 

Folks are largely unaware too that he was part of 'the wrecking crew.'

 

With good parenting any kid can "get" this song. They just have to be exposed to it, again and again ... it should sink in and resonate.
As previously mentioned Jimmy Webb's version on "Ten Easy Pieces" is pretty darn great.

Cassandra Wilson who has a talent for reinventing pop songs does a wonderful version of this song.
(her version of "Last Train to Clarksville" gave that song more depth and meaning than I knew was there)

 

Sometimes I perform a small program with my own songs, which I sing on piano. And Wichita Lineman is one of the few cover versions that I always include. And I always get a LOT of response to this song! Not only because of these two "and I need you more than want you..." lines - but because of the whole story. And because it's such a great composition.
Neither Jimmy Webb nor Glen Campbell seem to be well-known names in Germany these days. You have to sing their melodies - then everybody says: oh, THAT's the one...

 

Never owned the song, nor a Glen Campbell album but always caught my attention wherever/whenever I heard it.

Strangely his last album, Ghost on the Canvas found me the same way. Wasn't looking for it but happened to hear it with all the publicity about his illness. Not at all what I was expecting and normally wouldn't have given it the time. Haunting and well worth my time.

 

Never too young for Wichita Lineman; I love the Ray Charles version, with the slurring on the vocals.

 

Definitely there are TWO stereo variations. There is one version on a Cracker Barrel compilation. Cannot recall if it is the one with the strings lower in the mix.