Glen Campbell Songs - Wichita Lineman Lyrics

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman

Glen Campbell - Wichita Lineman Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Wichita Lineman
Released: 1968

Wichita Lineman Lyrics

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

I know I need a small vacation
But it don't look like rain
And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain
And I need you more than want you,
And I want you for all time
And the Wichita lineman is still on the line

And I need you more than want you,
And I want you for all time
And the Wichita lineman is still on the line

Writer/s: WEBB, JIMMY
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Wichita Lineman

This was written by Jimmy Webb, who also wrote Campbell's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Galveston." He was driving along the Kansas-Oklahoma border when he saw a lonesome telephone lineman working atop a telephone pole. This gave him the idea for the song.

In our interview with Jimmy Webb , he explained how he puts himself into the shoes of the subjects of this songs. Said Webb: "I've never worked with high-tension wires or anything like that. My characters were all ordinary guys. They were all blue-collar guys who did ordinary jobs. As Billy Joel likes to say, which is pretty accurate, he said, 'They're ordinary people thinking extraordinary thoughts.' I always appreciated that comment, because I thought it was very close to what I was doing or what I was trying to do. And they came from ordinary towns. They came from places like Galveston and Wichita and places like that.

No, I never worked for the phone company. But then, I'm not a journalist. I'm not Woody Guthrie. I'm a songwriter and I can write about anything I want to. I feel that you should know something about what you're doing and you should have an image, and I have a very specific image of a guy I saw working up on the wires out in the Oklahoma panhandle one time with a telephone in his hand talking to somebody. And this exquisite aesthetic balance of all these telephone poles just decreasing in size as they got further and further away from the viewer - that being me - and as I passed him, he began to diminish in size. The country is so flat, it was like this one quick snapshot of this guy rigged up on a pole with this telephone in his hand. And this song came about, really, from wondering what that was like, what it would be like to be working up on a telephone pole and what would you be talking about? Was he talking to his girlfriend? Probably just doing one of those checks where they called up and said, 'Mile marker 46,' you know. 'Everything's working so far.'"

While recording the song in the studio, Campbell felt something was out of place. He couldn't capture the same feel of the song he'd felt when Webb sang the demo as he accompanied himself on his Hammond organ. Campbell decided that the only way to get the right vibe was to add Webb's Hammond organ to the song's instrumentation.

The chiming at the fade that is meant to signify telephone signals was done on a massive church organ. (thanks, Bertrand - Paris, France)

Glen Campbell told the Daily Mail about his excitement on first hearing this song. He recalled that Webb used to write in the studio as Campbell did his recording. When the songwriter sang to him the parts of this song that he'd initially written, Campbell knew it was a hit. He continued: "I implored him to finish it, and even offered to help. But he told me to go and play my guitar and leave the writing to him." Webb added in our interview: "On certain songs, the magic is undeniable: 'Wichita Lineman' and 'By the Time I Get to Phoenix.' And it's almost as though the song was waiting for the singer and the singer was waiting for the song."

Before he became a solo star, Campbell was a prominent session musician, and on this track, he employed many of the people he used to play alongside on studio dates. Campbell played guitar along with Al Casey and James Burton, Carol Kaye was on bass, Jim Gordon on drums, and Al DeLory played piano. According to Carol Kaye, these session players would add a lot of notes to make more out of the parts that were written, and she created most of the intro on this track. "Wichita Lineman" is one of her favorites of the hundreds of songs she played on.

The Country group Restless Heart recorded an updated version for their 2013 album Encores. Their pianist Dave Innis told us that having played with Glen Campbell on several occasions including his last two concerts in Branson, Missouri the thought came to him when this song came on the radio that Restless Heart vocalist Larry Stewart, "would be the perfect singer for a recut." He added: "And the original 'Wichita Lineman' didn't have any background vocals on it, really, that I can recall. So it was fun to do a vocal treatment."