Wichita Lineman

Author(s): Dylan Jones

Music Biography

Dylan Jones' luminous excavation of Jimmy Webb's song 'Wichita Lineman' offers a portal into a defining moment of American cultural history. 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. Here, deep in American Arcadia, was a man in deep existential crisis. 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 50 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 of America at a moment of unprecedented crisis. Fusing a dribble of bass, searing strings, tremolo guitar and Glen 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 record that has entertained, perplexed and haunted millions for over half a century. What is it about this song that continues to fascinate and seduce listeners, and how did the parallel stories of Campbell and Webb - songwriters and recording artists from different ends of the spectrum - unfold in the decades following the song's success? Part biography, part work of musicological archaeology, The Wichita Lineman opens a window onto America in the late twentieth century through the prism of a song that has been covered by myriad artists in the intervening decades.


Product Information

General Fields

  • : 9780571353408
  • : Faber & Faber, Incorporated
  • : Faber & Faber Fiction
  • : 0.01
  • : August 2019
  • : .787 Inches X 5.079 Inches X 7.795 Inches
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Dylan Jones
  • : Hardback
  • : 1909
  • : English
  • : 782.421642
  • : 288