The Wichita Lineman

The sound of ¿Wichita Lineman¿ was the sound of ecstatic solitude, but then its hero was the quintessential loner. What a great metaphor he was: a man who needed a woman more than he actually wanted her.

Written in 1968 by Jimmy Webb, ¿Wichita Lineman¿ is the first philosophical country song: a heartbreaking torch ballad still celebrated for its mercurial songwriting genius fifty years later. It was recorded by Glen Campbell in LA with a legendary group of musicians known as ¿the Wrecking Crew¿, and something about the song¿s enigmatic mood seemed to capture the tensions in America at a moment of crisis. Fusing a dribble of bass, searing strings, tremolo guitar and Campbell¿s plaintive vocals, Webb¿s paean to the American West describes a telephone lineman¿s longing for an absent lover, who he hears ¿singing in the wire¿ ¿ and like all good love songs, it¿s an SOS from the heart.

Mixing close-listening, interviews and travelogue, Dylan Jones explores the legacy of a