"Wichita Lineman" is a 1968 song written by Jimmy Webb for American country music artist Glen Campbell,[2] who recorded it backed by members of the Wrecking Crew.[3] Widely covered by other artists, it has been called "the first existential country song."[4]
Background and content
Webb wrote "Wichita Lineman" in response to an urgent phone call from Campbell for a "place" or "geographical" song to follow up "By the Time I Get to Phoenix".[5] His lyrical inspiration came while driving through the high plains of the Oklahoma panhandle past a long line of telephone poles, on one of which perched a lineman speaking into his handset. Webb "put himself atop that pole" with the phone in his hand as he imagined the lineman talking to his girlfriend.[6][7] Despite its real-life roots lying elsewhere, Webb set his song in Wichita, Kansas.[8]
Within hours of Campbell's request, Webb delivered a demo that he regarded and labeled as an unfinished version of the song, warning producer/arranger Al De Lory that he had not completed a third verse or a bridge.[9][10] "When I heard it I cried," Campbell said, "... because I was homesick."[11] De Lory similarly found inspiration in the opening line. His uncle had been a lineman in Kern County, California: "I could visualize my uncle up a pole in the middle of nowhere. I loved the song right away."[12]
Webb's concerns over his song's shortcomings were addressed in the recording studio by adding a tremolo-infused Dano bass[13] melodic interlude performed by Campbell, who had first made his reputation in the music industry as a session guitarist with the prolific but uncredited group of Los Angeles backing musicians known today as the Wrecking Crew, many of whom played on the recording.[12][3][14] One of them, bassist Carol Kaye, contributed the descending six-note intro.[12] A second six-note bass lick improvised by Kaye was copied for strings by De Lory and used as a fill between the two rhyming couplets of each verse.[15]
All the orchestral arrangements are by De Lory,[16][17] who evokes the phrase "singing in the wire" using high-pitched, ethereal violins to emulate the sonic vibrations commonly induced by wind blowing across small wires and conductors, making them whistle or resonate like an aeolian harp. Similarly, he employs a repeating, monotonic 'Morse code' keyboard/flute motif[a] to mimic the electronic sounds a lineman might hear through a telephone earpiece attached to a long stretch of 'raw' telephone or telegraph line; that is, without typical line equalization and filtering: "I can hear you through the whine."[19][12]
Webb was surprised to learn that Campbell had recorded his song: "A couple of weeks later I ran into [Campbell] somewhere and I said, 'I guess you guys didn't like the song.' 'Oh, we cut that,' he said. 'It wasn't done! I was just humming the last bit!' 'Well, it's done now!'"[5] After listening to the test acetates of the studio recording that Campbell had with him, Webb contributed the overdub of evocative, reverberating electronic notes and open chords heard in the intro and fadeout, respectively, of the finished track, played on his Gulbransen electric organ.[20]
There's a place where the terrain absolutely flattens out. It's almost like you could take a level out of your tool kit and put it on the highway, and that bubble would just sit right there on dead centre. It goes on that way for about 50 miles. In the heat of summer, with the heat rising off the road, the telephone poles gradually materialise out of this far, distant perspective and rush toward you. And then, as it happened, I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles and there was a man on top, talking on a telephone. He was gone very quickly, and I had another 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. It was a splendidly vivid, cinematic image that I lifted out of my deep memory while I was writing this song. I thought, I wonder if I can write something about that? A blue-collar everyman guy we all see everywhere, working on the railroad or working on the telephone wires or digging holes in the street. I just tried to take an ordinary guy and open him up and say, 'Look, there's this great soul and there's this great aching and this great loneliness inside this person, and we're all like that. We all have this capacity for these huge feelings'.”
—Jimmy Webb[12]
Structure
The song contains two verses, each divided into two parts. The first part is in the key of F major, while the second is in D major. D represents the relative minor key to F, so a D minor (as opposed to major) section would be expected. The fact that it is nevertheless set in D major is argued to contribute to the unique and appealing character of the song.[12]
The lyrics follow the dichotomy set up by the contrasting musical keys. The first part of each verse (in F major) describes issues related to a lineman's job; for example, "searchin' in the sun for another overload"[b] and "if it snows, that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain." The second part (in D major) details the lineman's romantic thoughts, including his well-known declaration, “And I need you more than want you / And I want you for all time.”[22] Set against the F major brightness of the first part, the D major tonality of the second sounds distinctively mellow, which is consistent with its lyrical content.[12]
Webb's melancholic, jazz-tinged chord progressions, laced with major sevenths and suspended fourths, reinforce the song's indeterminate nature by modulating from F major to D major and back without ever fully resolving. Writer Allen Morrison has noted that, after a broken F-major tonic chord is heard twice during the bass intro,
The song never does get ‘home’ again to the tonic – not in either verse, nor in the fadeout. 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.[23]
Chart success and sales
Glen Campbell's version, which appeared on his 1968 album of the same name, reached number 3 on the US pop chart, remaining in the Top 100 for 15 weeks. It topped the American country music chart for two weeks and the adult contemporary chart for six weeks.[24] It was certified gold by the RIAA in January 1969.[25] In Canada, the single topped both the RPM national and country singles charts.[26][27] In the United Kingdom, it reached number 7.[28]
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Legacy and accolades
In 2021, Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" ranked "Wichita Lineman" at number 206.[44] Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan considered it "the greatest song ever written"[45] and British music journalistStuart Maconie called it "the greatest pop song ever composed."[46]BBC Radio described it as "one of those rare songs that seems somehow to exist in a world of its own – not just timeless but ultimately outside of modern music"[47] and spotlighted it in series 12 of Soul Music, their long-running show documenting the stories behind music with a powerful emotional impact.[48] In 2017, Paste placed the song at number two on their list of the 12 greatest Glen Campbell songs;[49] in their version, Billboard ranked it number three.[50]
Journalist and author Dylan Jones published the book The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song in 2019, documenting the song's genesis and enduring legacy.[52]
Jazz pianist Alan Pasqua developed an arrangement of the song for jazz trio that appears on his album My New Old Friend and Peter Erskine's album The Interlochen Concert. Jazz pianist John Harkins played an up-tempo rendition of the song on his 2015 album Cognition.[57] Jazz pianist Laurence Hobgood recorded a version of the song combining a contemporary jazz trio with a string quartet.[58] A soul-jazz version was also performed by Young-Holt Unlimited. A stripped-down version of the song also appears on Villagers' 2016 album Where Have You Been All My Life with a simple piano accompaniment.
Other covers of the song include that of Wade Hayes, who released a version in August 1997[59] that peaked at number 55 on the US country music charts. It was to have been included on an album entitled Tore Up from the Floor Up, but due to its poor chart performance, the album was delayed. That album was finally released in 1998 as When the Wrong One Loves You Right, with the "Wichita Lineman" cover excluded.[60]
In 2016, the country-pop band Restless Heart also recorded a cover of the song.[61]
Guns N' Roses covered the song live during their "Not in This Life Time" world tour. The first live performance of the song was on August 30, 2017, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.[62][63]Rolling Stone magazine described it as "their most unexpected cover of the tour".[64]
The Brian Setzer Orchestra covered the song live during their Christmas Rocks! 2017 tour[65] and they perform the song on the Christmas Rocks! Live Blu-ray DVD that was released on November 9, 2018.[66]
The English rock band, Elbow covered the song on the Zoe Ball Show on BBC Radio 2 as a surprise for the actor Paul Rudd, on October 19, 2019.[67]
In 2020, Los Angeles based keyboardist MAXN released what may be the only version sung entirely through a vocoder on the EP "Songs for Vocoders."
Former Men at Work frontman Colin Hay recorded and released a version of this song on his 2021 cover album I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself.[68]
Lyrics that are loose translations of, or inspired by, Webb's song have been written in at least two other languages: German and Finnish.
A German language version written by Thomas Fritsch, "Der Draht in der Sonne" (English "The Wire In the Sun"), has also been covered by Katja Ebstein.[70]
The song was used in the opening and closing scenes of the Ozark season 2 episode, "Badger", to emphasize the setting and tone of the beginning and end of Darlene and Jacob Snell's romance.[72]
The KLF referenced the song in the title "Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard", on their 1990 ambient houseconcept albumChill Out.[citation needed]
The Decemberists paid homage to the song on their album Picaresque in the song "The Engine Driver".[citation needed]
In the Newsradio Season 2 episode "In Through the Out Door", Matthew (Andy Dick) bets Joe (Joe Rogan) that the next song on the radio will be a good one. When they flip the radio on, "Wichita Lineman" is playing. Matthew admits to losing the bet, while from the next room Dave (Dave Foley) wistfully remarks that he loves this song.[citation needed]
The song appears in the 2013 film (and accompanying soundtrack) Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa.
The track's fadeout was voiced over for many years by longtime English DJ Steve Wright to close his BBC Radio shows.[73]
Notes
^Originated by Jimmy Webb and played on his Gulbransen electric organ in the studio, where De Lory first heard it.[18]
^In fact, overloads disable overhead power cables not telephone lines, a lyrical inaccuracy which Webb would later defend as poetic license.[21]
^Campbell overdubbed his vocals at a separate session.
References
^Blake, Mark; DeMain, Bill; Elliott, Paul; Ewing, Jerry; Glass, Polly; Hughes, Rob; August 2016, Henry Yates05 (August 5, 2016). "The 25 best country rock songs of all time". Classic Rock Magazine. Retrieved April 29, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^"Wichita Lineman". BBC. Retrieved August 7, 2018.
^ abHartman, Kent (2012). The Wrecking Crew. St. Martin's Griffin. pp. 261–263. ISBN 978-1-250-03046-7.
^"Dylan Jones: If you ask me". Independent.co.uk. September 18, 2011. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
^ abPresenter: John Wilson; Producer: Jerome Weatherald; Interviewed Guest: Jimmy Webb (October 10, 2017). "Director Sally Potter, Composer Jimmy Webb, Anorexia on screen". Front Row. 16:55 minutes in. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved October 11, 2017.
^MacIntosh, Dan (May 16, 2011). "Jimmy Webb Interview". Songfacts.
^Robert Wilonsky (November 2, 2006). "Power Lines : Jimmy Webb wrote one of the greatest songs ever. Just don't tell him that". Dallas Observer. Archived from the original on March 30, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
^Jones, Dylan (2019). The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song. London: Faber & Faber. p. 260. ISBN 978-0-571-35340-8.
^Webb, Jimmy. The Cake and the Rain: A Memoir, p. 211, at Google Books
^"Jimmy Webb: Behind the song". maverick-country.com. Hand Media Internation. May 11, 2022. Retrieved January 16, 2024. ... I was wondering if I was going to put a bridge into it.
^Campbell, Glen (recording artist) (August 23, 2011). BBC Radio 4 - Soul Music (Series 12, Episode 2 of 5): Wichita Lineman (Radio broadcast). London, UK: British Broadcasting Corporation. Event occurs at 0:03. Retrieved September 12, 2022.
^ abcdefgSavage, Mark (August 9, 2017). "Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman: The unfinished song that became a classic". BBC.
^Kaye, Carol. "Carol Kaye FAQ". carolkaye.com. Retrieved June 26, 2022. What a thrill it was to cut "Wichita Lineman" for Glen. And yes, he borrowed my Dano 6-stg. bass guitar to play his famous solo on.
^Kaye, Carol (June 21, 2022). "Carol Kaye: Queen of the Bass". The Documentary (Interview). Interviewed by Suzi Quatro. BBC World Service. Retrieved June 24, 2022.
^Betts, Stephen L. (February 26, 2016). "Hear Restless Heart's Shimmering Tribute to Glen Campbell". Rolling Stone. New York City. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
^Cole, George (September 30, 2010). "Elton John, the Beach Boys and the fine art of pop alchemy". The Guardian. London. Retrieved November 4, 2016.
^De Lory, Al (record producer & arranger) (February 29, 2020) [Interviewed March 4, 2008]. How Glen Campbell was almost dropped from Capitol Records before recording his biggest hits (Videotape). Nashville, TN: Musicians Hall of Fame. Event occurs at 15:41. Retrieved September 1, 2022 – via YouTube.
^Webb, Jimmy. The Cake and the Rain: A Memoir, p. 211, at Google Books
^Jones, Dylan (2019). The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song. London: Faber & Faber. p. 225. ISBN 978-0-571-35340-8.
^"Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. September 15, 2021. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
^Hopper, Alex (2023). "4 of Bob Dylan's Favorite Songs". American Songwriter. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
^Maconie, Stuart (2004). Cider With Roadies (1st ed.). London: Random House. p. 303. ISBN 0-09-189115-9.
^"Wichita Lineman". BBC Radio 2. April 2005. Retrieved February 14, 2011.
^"Soul Music - Wichita Lineman". BBC Radio 4. August 2011. Retrieved September 18, 2011.
^Zimmerman, Lee (June 12, 2017). "The 12 Best Glen Campbell Songs". Paste. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
^Dauphin, Chuck (August 8, 2017). "Glen Campbell's 10 Best Songs: Critic's Picks". Billboard. Retrieved April 3, 2022.
^"National Recording Registry Class Produces Ultimate 'Stay at Home' Playlist". Library of Congress. March 25, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
^"The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song". Library Journal. July 31, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2023.
^Webb, Jimmy (songwriter) (July 31, 2023) [Interviewed June 8, 2023 by Rick Beato]. Wichita Lineman: Talking with Tunesmith Jimmy Webb (Videotape). New York City, NY: Beato, Rick. Event occurs at 9:29. Retrieved February 8, 2024 – via YouTube. Sid Sharp did all the strings for the Wrecking Crew's records.
^"Gotcha Covered: Wichita Lineman". Stereogum. August 24, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2020.
^Blackstock, Peter (July 16, 2020). "Black Pumas filter Glen Campbell through the Meters on 'Wichita Lineman' cover". Austin American-Statesman. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
^Wichita Lineman, April 25, 2020, archived from the original on December 12, 2021, retrieved August 20, 2021
^Greenlee, Steve (June 2019). "Laurence Hobgood: Tesseterra (Ubuntu)". JazzTimes. Retrieved August 20, 2021.
^"Wichita Lineman by Wade Hayes". CMT. August 26, 1997. Archived from the original on July 31, 2004. Retrieved December 27, 2012.
^"Wade Hayes' "Wrong" Is Just Right for Him". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. November 28, 1997. Retrieved September 23, 2010.
^"Restless Heart Premiere 'Wichita Lineman' Video". Taste of Country. May 9, 2016. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
^"Guns N Roses - Live in Edmonton 2017 - Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell Tribute)". jzalapski at YouTube.com. August 30, 2017. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
^"Guns N' Roses - Not In This Lifetime Selects: Wichita". Guns N' Roses at YouTube.com. November 26, 2019. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
^"See Guns N' Roses' Surprise Cover of Glen Campbell's 'Wichita Lineman'". RollingStone.com. August 31, 2017. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
^Pimienta, Edgar, The Brian Setzer Orchestra playing Wichita Lineman on tour Christmas Rocks! 2017, retrieved December 26, 2022
^The Brian Setzer Orchestra - Christmas Rocks! Live, November 9, 2018, retrieved December 26, 2022
^"BBC Radio 2 - The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show - 12 guests we've loved on Zoe Ball this autumn". BBC. Retrieved February 29, 2024.
^"Colin Hay Covers The Greats On "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself"". NewJerseyStage.com. August 3, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2021.
^Daykin, James (November 3, 2023). "Brett Kissel – 'The Compass Project: West' album review". Entertainment Focus.
^Discover the Original: Der Draht in der Sonne Archived January 9, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, coverinfo.de
^"Kantritohtori Teppo Nättilä - Rootsterapiaa ja mojomiehekästä menoa!". areena.yle.fi. Retrieved June 1, 2018.
^Tallerico, Brian (September 2018). "Ozark Recap: Nothing Personal". Vulture.
^BBC Radio 2 - Steve Wright's Glen Campbell Tribute (Radio broadcast). London, UK: British Broadcasting Corporation. December 4, 2018 [Broadcast August 9, 2017]. Event occurs at 0:35. Retrieved August 26, 2022 – via YouTube.
Further reading
Jones, Dylan (2019). The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song. London: Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-35340-8. 281 pp.
External links
Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Wichita Lineman