Glen Campbell is waiting in the studio for a song. He has an album to finish. A courier rushes in with a cassette. The Wrecking Crew, a collective of session musicians, gets to work.
The song is ‘Wichita Lineman’ and the writer Jimmy Webb. Under pressure to finish it, he sent an incomplete version, but heard nothing back. Bumping into the singer weeks later Webb said, “I guess you guys didn’t like the song.”
Campbell replied, “Oh, we cut that.”
“It wasn’t done! I was just humming the last bit!”
‘Well, it’s done now!”
Yes, it was.
Indeed, Webb had scarcely completed two verses totalling a dozen lines. He’d intended to add a third if required. In this space Glen Campbell put his now famous and improvised solo.
I wonder if Jimmy Webb ever finished his lyrics. What might he have said? What else might he have taken from the lineman’s interior monologue? In the original he moves between the immense three of love, self and work. What else is there?
It’s a great unfinished artwork like Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon, and Gaudi’s Basílica de la Sagrada Família.
If Webb had now penned a third verse I’m unsure I want to read it. Would it be like painting a hat on the woman in the Mona Lisa?
The song’s superb just as it is.
*
Lengthy songs have always fascinated me for their enhanced narrative possibility, and I enjoy entering these protracted sometimes strange worlds. I find The Doors’ ‘The End’ (11:43), ‘So I’m Growing Old on Magic Mountain’ by Father John Misty (9:58), ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ by Creedence Clearwater Revival (11:04), and Frank Zappa’s ‘Billy the Mountain (24 minutes) are all, for me, enduringly absorbing.
Early in our post-Sweden isolation, I was scanning the alternate music website Pitchfork when I found a post on suggested music for these uncommon times. Seeing the song title ‘Wichita Lineman’, I leant closer to my screen. It was the famous song but a cover version by the Dick Slessig Combo. No, I hadn’t heard of them either.
There was a YouTube link and my search indicated that the song wasn’t on Spotify. Indeed, trawling the internet I’ve discovered that they’re from LA and formed after the demise of cult group Acetone with guitarist Mark Lightcap common to both. They pressed a few hundred CDs. That’s about it.
*
Clicking the link I hear a slowed, almost eerily subdued set of notes. The iconic melody only arrives after seven minutes, and the entire piece – ‘song’ seems inadequate – drifts and hovers with guitars quietly climbing before falling away like an elderly priest. Over its 42-minute duration it’s entirely instrumental.
The soundscape conjures both the empty landscape of Kansas and the protagonist’s mindscape with graceful use of tremolo and reverb.
Vast and sprawling, it evokes Webb’s everyman “apparition.” It’s not sad or lonely but rather about aloneness. There’s deep beauty carried in the music and a compelling, respectful fragility. It probes and portrays.
Like the original, it’s inward-looking but also a meditation. Given the deep and universal thoughts of Webb’s character, the existentialism is expressed perfectly with the sound flowing like an ancient holy river.
The occasionally maligned Billy Joel once said “Wichita Lineman” is “a simple song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts.”
The Dick Slessig Combo offers an exquisite tribute and exploration of the song’s haunting, singular image.
It’s transcendence.
@MichealRandall5
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About Mickey Randall
Now whip it into shape/ Shape it up, get straight/ Go forward, move ahead/ Try to detect it, it's not too late/ To whip it, whip it good
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‘And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time…’ One of the great lines! Fab read Mickey.
Thanks Colin. It certainly is although debate continues about this couplet. Is it a healthy situation? Is the protagonist a little unstable given this is more about need? Or is it simply a highly romantic metaphor? I’m prefer the final of these positions.
Coincidentally I’ve just received an early birthday present which is a book entirely devoted to this song called The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World’s Greatest Unfinished Song. By GQ editor Dylan Jones, I’m really looking forward to it.
“I mix the paint up in the doodad”
Of course Swish. I don’t know why Webb didn’t go with that!
“Searchin’ in the sun for another overload”- is this really part of the job description for a lineman in Kansas? Seems a little vague and as they say, undeliverable.
“Billy the Mountain” wow what a blast from my past. Ethel was a tree Mr Zappa more than once told me.
I think I posted before that I always heard “Wichita Linesman”
Thanks JIm. What a visionary, guitarist and song writer was Zappa. I knew of Zappa previously but one night on their great Sunday night show the Coodabeens were briefly chatting of Zappa and all agreed that “Billy the Mountain” was his best song so I bought the album “Just Another Band From LA” and was transfixed by the scope of the song. A few years’ ago I wrote a piece about the song for the Almanac’s sister site, Stereo Stories-
https://www.stereostories.com/billy-the-mountain-by-frank-zappa/
The lineman/linesman dilemma is interesting as in Australia we have a history of using the latter so I often think that should be the song title.
Brilliant Mickey.
I’m glad to know there is someone else out there who has been as fascinated about this song as long I have been. The lyrics have always been as haunting as the simplicity of the musical arrangement.
No, I can’t quibble with your “not sad or lonely but rather about aloneness”. If I could add a dimension though, what strikes me most is the, perhaps, resigned wistfulness rather akin to Jimmy Buffet’s Come Monday.
Keep up the good output though comrade and don’t let any of this distract you from your Captain Ahab like quest to understand the true meaning of sausage rolls and the Little River Band.
Thanks Roger. Appreciate your thoughts. Agree that there’s a haunted quality but of course, we’re unsure of the details. The fun and engagement comes in speculating about the cause or causes of his wistfulness.
Listening to Jimmy Buffet only last Friday- uncanny!
i only recently stumbled upon this rendition and i am absolutely floored by it. the beautiful song stretched out like a thin veneer of melancholy romance over the entire state of kansas, gently bronzed in the sun and shimmering. the way the lyrics find magic in the mundane and the way this group manages to abstract that feeling into sound is god’s work. the simplicity of this assessment reflects that, infinitely evocative and leaving so much to the reader to glean before being blown away by the track.
i dug deeper into the dick slessig combo and the tragic story of acetone, underrated gems in slowcore music. it sounds like i imagine purgatory feels, the final few feet in a hallway.
Thanks for your lyrical response: gently bronzed in the sun and shimmering is a wonderful observation. I love the Dick Slessig Combo but they only seem to exist on YouTube. How great would vinyl versions be?
I can heartily suggest Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World’s Greatest Unfinished Song by Dylan Jones. It’s a great book.
Appreciate your thoughts Sam.
I love the Dick Slessig Combo version of this ….. it’s truely magnificent ……….. it doesn’t go anywhere, just everywhere – a study in long form minimal discipline possibly maybe ?
Thanks Craig. Agree that it’s a study in minimalism and that it’s both ‘anywhere and nowhere.’ Their long versions of Jive Talkin’ and Ode to Billy Joe are also worth a listen. Unlikely but how good would it be to hear live?
Yeah – have listened to the Jive Talkin’ / Ode To Billy Joe live gig on YouTube with the drummer playing a guitar on his snare with brushes ? Nice for sure and would love to see them live. I’d love them to do another run on their CD too. I’d buy one.
FYI
https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/the-meandering-thematic-weirdo-muzak-thread.1382569/
Interesting thread, Craig. I reckon, ‘a high desert evening quiet drift’ is a great description of the song. If you’ve not seen this, it’s also worth a look. The performance is dated as earlier this year which is promising…
https://youtu.be/jOw2dB5EMdg?si=eqLD9X0bSkKORr54
What did you make of the Gregoire Maret · Romain Collin · Bill Frisell take on Wichita Lineman ?
I love it myself …….. stillness, melancholy but most of all benign in the true sense of the word.
I can understand how the harmonica’s a natural fit for a song about being alone (not loneliness) but it doesn’t quite work for me. I might be too accustomed to that plaintive guitar. I agree regarding the stillness. For a song about a lineman, presumably someone in constant professional motion, the stillness is central.
Craig- this is great too. Only uploaded recently and has a fantastic version of George McCrae’s ‘Rock Your Baby’ included from about the 48-minute mark.
https://youtu.be/Kg6uSv7H9E0?si=Ahzs2_KbHtrCUeHF