Discussion of Wichita Lineman

It's wonderful to hear the breakdown of how the music was made. As a guy who was born in Wichita, lived 50 miles from Oklahoma when the song came out, Wichita Lineman is one of the songs that's in my soundtrack, hard.

At the time I first heard the song, I thought it was about a guy who worked for the phone company, or perhaps the power company. He was out, alone, tired, and dedicated. I thought the song glorified some of my neighbors who drove home trucks adorned with ladders, maybe a boom, and always a big spool of wire.

I didn't think about the song again for years. At some point, a friend e-mailed me a demo of him playing an instrumental version of Wichita Lineman. The next time we were together, we listened to the song again, and I sang along. He said, "Jesus, man. You know all the words!"

I told him it was a great song, and that he was cutting it short by recording an instrumental version.

About the same time, I read a biography of Neil Young called Shakey--an amazing book which fills in many blanks but has you waiting for the train wreck at any moment. The important quote from Neil Young is, "...every great song is wanting to, but you can't." If any song fills that bill, it's Wichita Lineman.

As Glen Campell was passing a few years ago, I was on the road and listening to satellite radio a bunch--it was filled with Glen Campbell. I had no idea that he was everywhere, and that some of the riffs I'd heard since I discovered the radio were his.

To pile on to Martin's points, the guy was a phenomenal guitar player, and if you go to YouTube and look up his duets with David Gates, of Bread, who by the way ruined it for anyone trying to sing Bread songs at a wedding reception for the next three decades, Glen Campbell sang lead on a bunch of those duet performances.

Glen Campbell is one of those guys who a lot of us thought we knew but realized we knew more once he was gone.