Wichita Lineman

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This article is about the song. For the album, see Wichita Lineman (album). For the horse, see Wichita Lineman (horse).

"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 Campbell's urgent phone request for a "place"-based 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 plea from the recording studio, 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 quickly addressed in the 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]

“ 
Route 412 in the Oklahoma panhandle, in Cimarron County near Boise City, looking east toward Guymon. (Photo taken March 17, 2009.)
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 materialize 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]

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 journalist Stuart 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 influential 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]

The single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2019, the Library of Congress preserved the song in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[51]

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]

Personnel

Basic instrumental[c] tracks

(May 27, 1968)


Organ overdub

(mid-June, 1968)

Orchestral overdub

(August 14, 1968)

Strings:

  • Sid Sharp (concertmaster),[54] Bill Kurasch, Lenny Malarsky, Bill Nuttycombe, Jerry Reisler, Ralph Schaeffer, Bob Sushel, Tibor Zelig – violin
  • Sam Boghossian, Joe DiFiore – viola
  • Jesse Ehrlic, Anne Goodman – cello
  • Don Bagley – double bass

Horns:



Woodwinds:

Keyboards:

Percussion:

  • Bob Felts – drums
  • Norm Jeffries

Cover versions

Many adult "middle of the road" (MOR) artists recorded the song, including Tom Jones, Johnny Mathis, Robert Goulet, Andy Williams, Bobby Goldsboro and Engelbert Humperdinck, most of them shortly after the original version was a hit. Reggae singer Dennis Brown released a cover of the song on his 1972 album Super Reggae and Soul Hits.[55] There were also many instrumental versions, including one by José Feliciano. In 2001 the instrumental band Friends of Dean Martinez included a cover version on their studio album of the same name, featuring lap steel guitarist Bill Elm. Guitarist Johnny A. included an instrumental version on his 1999 release Sometime Tuesday Morning. The song has also been covered by artists such as Ray Charles, The Dells, Billy Joel, Freedy Johnston, O.C. Smith, Willie Hutch, The Meters, These Animal Men, Maria McKee, Reg Presley of The Troggs, Michael Piccard, Shawn Lee, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, James Taylor, R.E.M., The Clouds, Earl Van Dyke, Zucchero Fornaciari, King Harvest, Johnny Cash, Dwight Yoakam, Wayne Newton, Tony Joe White, Stoney LaRue, B.E.F., Urge Overkill,[56] Black Pumas,[57] Colin Hay and The Nottingham Youth Jazz Orchestra (Combo). Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 did the song with the lyrics "He is a lineman for the county".

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.[58] Jazz pianist Laurence Hobgood recorded a version of the song combining a contemporary jazz trio with a string quartet.[59] 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[60] 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.[61]

In 2016, the country-pop band Restless Heart also recorded a cover of the song.[62]

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.[63][64] Rolling Stone magazine described it as "their most unexpected cover of the tour".[65]

The Brian Setzer Orchestra covered the song live during their Christmas Rocks! 2017 tour[66] and they perform the song on the Christmas Rocks! Live Blu-ray DVD that was released on November 9, 2018.[67]

After Campbell's death, Webb sang the song with Little Big Town as a tribute during the 51st Annual Country Music Association Awards on November 8, 2017.[citation needed]

Fred Hersch performed a cover of the song at the Village Vanguard on July 23, 2019.

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.[68]

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.[69]

Brett Kissel covered the song on his 2023 release The Compass Project - West Album.[70]

In other languages

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.[71]

Finnish singer Topi Sorsakoski recorded a Finnish version of the song on his album Yksinäisyys osa 2 in 1995.[72]

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.[73]

Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman) can be heard briefly singing the song in the season four episode of Parks and Recreation, "The Debate".[citation needed]

Homer Simpson sings the song while mimicking hold music in The Simpsons 15th-season episode "Co-Dependents' Day".[citation needed]

The KLF referenced the song in the title "Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard", on their 1990 ambient house concept album Chill 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.[74]

Notes

  1. ^ Originated by Jimmy Webb and played on his Gulbransen electric organ in the studio, where De Lory first heard it.[18]
  2. ^ Overloads disable overhead power cables, not telephone lines, a lyrical inaccuracy which Webb would later defend as poetic license.[21]
  3. ^ Campbell overdubbed his vocal at a separate session.[53]

References

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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.
Wikipedia URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_Lineman