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The song that Bob Dylan described as the "greatest ever written"
Far Out Magazine ^ | 6-18-22 | Tom Taylor

Posted on 06/26/2022 4:00:07 PM PDT by FLNittany

Tom Taylor @TomTaylorFO Sat 18th Jun 2022 17.08 BST

Bob Dylan called it the “greatest song ever written” and while it may have been lauded by noble dignitaries of culture ever since it was released, derided at every turn, it is this proclamation that seems most significant. The poignancy of the praise does not reside in the fact that it came from a revered numen of the arts, but rather because during the era in which it was written no other musician was extolling virtues with as much vivacious truth as Dylan himself.

When these profound, poetic and prescient, but nonetheless, humble truths were mistaken for the sagacious rally cries of a firebrand gunning to be a moral arbiter of society, Dylan withdrew.

In his retreat, he produced the rollicking album New Morning. The withdrawal for Dylan was not easy; it was a reclamation of his own individualism, but as he said himself: “All I can be is me, whoever that is.” The song ‘Sign on the Window’ plucks out a verse that elucidated the dichotomy of his condition: “Build me a cabin in Utah / Marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout / Have a bunch of kids who call me pa / That must be what it’s all about…” In many ways, this disavowing of any political connotations and ever-deepening existential introspection upheld an even grander universal truth within the rapidly modernising world – society may underpin freedom, but our lives are not governed by circumstance and even less so politics, but rather how we experience the world.

When surveying the many piles of podcast adjacent playlists or more traditional sonic receptacles, it’s clear there can be no song in history that has made that point quite as perfectly as ‘Wichita Lineman’.

In the very first second that the needle pulls onto the gravel track of the grooves, Carol Kaye’s descending bass notes whisk up the sonic landscape of the song in a spiralling ensemble of strings and a symphony of synchronised instrumentation. Thereafter telephone poles rise from the auditory ether in the dusky hue of the Midwest as the most immediate musical transportation unspools. Far from the nondescript platitude-riddled pastures where most love songs take place, ‘Wichita Lineman’ thrives on specificity, and as a result, it paradoxically clutches the universal by humanising the individual tale therein.

Neither the songwriter Jimmy Webb nor the performer Glen Campbell were ever linemen, but it is on empathetical values that the song hinges and as such it becomes one of the most relatable ever written regardless of your own experiences.

“When I heard it, I cried,” Glen Campbell told BBC Radio 4, “It made me cry because I was homesick. When I was on the way home, I saw all these electrical wires and the telephone poles, it made me cry.” The truth is that without the weight of music behind it, a man weeping at the sight of a telephone pole would never occur unless a telephone engineer suddenly developed an unabating fear of heights. But in ‘Wichita Lineman’ they are not only representative of a singular tale about a lonely workman out on the highways, but the unnoticed struggle of the common man in general.

“Glen gave me a call from the studio and said, ‘Can you write me another song like ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’,” Jimmy Webb explains, “and I said, ‘no’, but he kind of mentioned the geographical genre and I took a swing at it and I called him back that afternoon and I said, ‘I don’t think this song is finished, but I’m going send it to you’. And the next time I heard it; it was on the record.” For Jimmy Webb, the song remained unfinished, or at the very least a first draft, and in a purely nebulous way that could not have been a more befitting paradigm for the job of eternally maintaining the telephone lines that stretch along the great plains of America. And on this rare occasion, I don’t think that transcendental embodiment is too much of a reach.

It is often true that in many cases with music, songs are imbued with depth after the fact that was never really there in the first place. They evoke personal corroborations, and we fill in the blanks and claim they were contained in the masterpiece all along, elevating them, perhaps sometimes falsely, to lofty heights that tower above lesser songs or sometimes just lesser-known songs. However, when it comes to ‘Wichita Lineman’ that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Even Jimmy Webb’s explanation for the origin of the song itself seems to ratify this: “By the Kansas border the terrain absolutely flattens out… It goes on that way for about fifty miles,” he says. “In the heat of summer, the heat rises off the road in this shimmering mirage and the telephone poles gradually materialise out of this far distant perspective and they become large and rush towards you.”

“As it happened,” he continues, “I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles and there was a man on top talking on the telephone and 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 memory when I was writing this song about an ordinary guy, a working-class type of dude.”

It is an instance orchestrated by pure happenstance, and yet it is hard to think of a more perfect metaphor for the vanishing working-class masses the world over, so much so that it seems to have been woven into place by some mystic figures of fate. The fact that on this occasion, the embodying apparition worked in a trade that literally connects society is a pastiche that emboldens the song with something larger than itself. It is one of those rare transcendent pieces of music that doesn’t seem to have been written at all but lassoed from the floating firmament and necessarily transposed to expose values and virtues that colour life with the sanguine hue experiential meaning.

There are moments of pure musical craftsmanship, like the perfect syncopation as Glen Campbell croons out, “And I need you…” just a half-beat before you expect it, as though he needs to get it off his chest. However, these flourishes of purposeful design disappear into the metaphysics of the perfectly realised swirl of sound and wisdom as quickly as the apparition that spawned it. Like the tendrils of wires that weave across the expanse, the hands that wove the tapestry go unnoticed amid the unfurling evocations rising from the void. Like the glistening symphonic soundscape crafted by Campbell, Webb, The Wrecking Crew, Al De Lory and others, the song is so full of depth that you could drop hammer into it and never hear it hit bottom.

In short, the meaning in this case – illuminated in near-unrivalled couplets like “I know I need a small vacation / But it don’t look like rain,” and “I need you more than want you / And I want you for all time” – is that love and grief, longing and belonging, struggle and triumph are all part of the same pact. And fortunately, the exultant soaring melody of ‘Wichita Lineman’ and the tale of love beyond illusion contained therein ensure that these trades do not come out as a draw because even the pains of the Lineman’s loneliness and ceaseless work are transfigured by the reward awaiting at home.


TOPICS: Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: bobdylan; dylan; glencampbell; glenncampbell; jimmywebb; music; wichitalineman
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To: Fiji Hill

> Purple People Eaters don’t just eat purple people. They also eat little blue men. But their parents don’t like them to travel to earth, where they might themselves be eaten by gorillas.

Well, *that* was a fun rabbit hole to go down. How did you happen to know about all those connections?


161 posted on 06/27/2022 12:24:14 AM PDT by lefty-lie-spy (Stay Metal)
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To: Fiji Hill

My favorite version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORQ9tWuC4f4


162 posted on 06/27/2022 12:34:11 AM PDT by jpsb
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To: MtnClimber

Jimmy Webb... to me that version really brings out the lonliness and longing of home the troops in Vietnam where going through.

Webb said he wrote a lot of material based on Campbell’s vocal qualities, which he deeply admired.


163 posted on 06/27/2022 3:14:06 AM PDT by Clutch Martin ("The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." )
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To: Clutch Martin

Hard to say what Glen was better at, guitar or vocals.


164 posted on 06/27/2022 3:20:42 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: FLNittany

Nice tune, doesn’t stack up against “Seven Spanish Angels” tho.


165 posted on 06/27/2022 3:29:56 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (Freedom isn't free, liberty isn't liberal and you'll never find anything Right on the Left)
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To: FLNittany

“...and yet it is hard to think of a more perfect metaphor for the vanishing working-class masses the world over,”

The working “class” masses aren’t vanishing. That’s a preposterous statement. There will always be labor involved, hence the working class is never going away.


166 posted on 06/27/2022 4:08:41 AM PDT by Clutch Martin ("The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." )
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To: atc23

Yep, his version is great and I like Emmylou Harris’s too.


167 posted on 06/27/2022 6:57:45 AM PDT by Yardstick
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To: jpsb
That demands an answer.

By the Time You Get to Phoenix--Wanda Jackson (1967)

168 posted on 06/27/2022 8:52:27 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: lefty-lie-spy
Well, *that* was a fun rabbit hole to go down. How did you happen to know about all those connections?

A lot of these records are in my collection, although I rarely purchase records anymore now that everything I want is on Youtube.

So far, no one has brought up the story of the Witch Doctor, who is also a friend of the Purple People Eater.


169 posted on 06/27/2022 9:04:01 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: FLNittany; AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; BraveMan; ...
Glen Campbell featuring Stone Temple Pilots at recording studio
Wichita Lineman | Tac0L0c0
Wichita Lineman | Tac0L0c0

170 posted on 06/27/2022 4:04:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Clay Moore

I like that one, particularly the Steve Goodman versions. :^)

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%E2%80%9CYou+Never+Even+Called+Me+By+My+Name%E2%80%9D


171 posted on 06/27/2022 4:08:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: glorgau

Naw, it’s We’re a Happy Family!


172 posted on 06/27/2022 4:33:39 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I’m glad I’m not the only one expecting fiber optic splices had replaced all that.


173 posted on 06/27/2022 4:35:43 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: chickenlips; Clay Moore

John Prine is someone Dylan recognized early on as a great songwriter. I don’t know that he has anything anyone would consider in the running for greatest song ever, but he has a heckuva lot of really good songs. It is amazing to me he wrote Hello In There as a very young man. It shows incredible insight into the human condition.

https://youtu.be/RfwGkplB_sY


174 posted on 06/27/2022 4:55:03 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: newfreep

Some guitarists are great pickers and some are great fretmen; but Glen Campbell was both. I love his voice; but he was a masterful guitarist. The following tour de force, however, is just for show off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUBhE00h9U0


175 posted on 06/27/2022 5:42:04 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (“Government is the problem.” --Milton Friedman)
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To: central_va
I needs an upgrade to be the Windmill Repairman.

LOL. Dead birds.

176 posted on 06/27/2022 5:45:14 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (“Government is the problem.” --Milton Friedman)
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To: FLNittany

One of my favorite ( of many ) Glen Campbell songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TSTP6kAG1


177 posted on 06/27/2022 6:30:01 PM PDT by Albion Wilde (“Government is the problem.” --Milton Friedman)
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To: MtnClimber

Really? Where did you hear that? I don’t know, I assume you are right. I always thought it was about Vietnam as well.


178 posted on 06/27/2022 9:35:26 PM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (As long as Hillary Clinton remains free, the USA will never have equal justice under the law)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda

I posted something about Galveston years ago, after Glenn passed away, and another poster corrected me. I researched it at the time and they were right, Galveston was about the Spanish American War in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders and all that. I don’t remember now where I found it, but it surprised me that it was not about Vietnam.


179 posted on 06/28/2022 3:30:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: FLNittany

Rd later.


180 posted on 06/28/2022 3:32:01 AM PDT by NetAddicted (Just looking)
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