Nobody gives a damn about rhymes in songs today
It’s one of the most iconic hits ever, but Wichita Lineman will always remain flawed to Jimmy Webb. Ahead of his latest UK show, the songwriting legend tells the story of its creation, shares his frustrations at modern tastes and reveals why Taylor Swift is following in his footsteps
COUNTRY music great Glen Campbell’s classic hit Wichita Lineman is undoubtedly one of the finest ballads ever written. Composed in 1968, the moving song about the “lineman for the county” talking to his girlfriend while working high up on some telephone poles perfectly captures the melancholy of a long-distance relationship.
The lineman’s poignant final message to his loved one that: “I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time” is often cited as one of the most beautiful lyrics of any song.
Set to a haunting arrangement which encapsulates the spacious, desolate feel of theAmerican Midwest,Wichita Lineman was hailed in 2013 as “the greatest song ever written” by Bob Dylan. Yet the songwriter who created Wichita Lineman doesn’t think the classic hit was ever properly finished – and he admits he’d have altered that timeless final couplet if he’d had the chance to work on the song for longer.
When songwriting giant Jimmy Webb – whose many other classic tunes include Up, Up And Away, MacArthur Park and Galveston – first sent Wichita Lineman to Campbell, he included a note warning his friend that the song wasn’t done.
Campbell had recently enjoyed a hit with Webb’s song By The Time I Get To Phoenix.
Webb tells The Daily Express: “Glen wanted another geographical song, so I worked on Wichita Lineman that afternoon at my house. It was chaos there, as I had painters in doing work. Glen phoned me every hour, asking: ‘Is it done yet?’
“By 6pm, I’d finished two verses. I thought maybe it needed to be a verse/chorus song, or that I’d maybe write a bridge and a third verse later. Any way you looked at it, there was a possibility I hadn’t finished the song yet, because that was all I’d got: two verses.”
Of his fateful note, Jimmy recalls: “I wrote to Glen, ‘Here’s Wichita Lineman. It’s probably not finished. Let me know what you think. Love, Jimmy’, and I put a big smiley face next to my name.”
AFTER two weeks of silence, Webb assumed Campbell simply didn’t like his part-finished ballad. That was common, even for a songwriter enjoying his first success, as Webb states: “The first thing you have to learn as a songwriter is that some songs go right in the garbage can.
“You have to leave those songs behind you and move onto your next song, not obsess over songs that have no chance of being made.”
So Webb simply told Campbell, goodnaturedly: “You don’t have to worry about Wichita Lineman. I wasn’t sure about that song, as it wasn’t even finished.”
But it transpired Campbell never saw the note – and had already recorded his fateful version of the future classic.
Webb laughs: “Sure enough,
Glen had definitely finished Wichita Lineman. All I did then was to overdub the celestial sound of my Gulbransen 700 Series church organ on top, because these were the days before synthesisers.”
Although the song soon became a hit, it wasn’t until the 1980s that Wichita Lineman outstripped By The Time I Get To Phoenix and Galveston as Webb’s most beloved composition for Campbell.
He recalls: “So many covers of it in so many different genres started appearing. “I thought, ‘Gee, for a song I didn’t finish, it’s not doing so badly.’ It’s got a couple of bad rhymes in it. That final couplet that some people say is the greatest line ever written?
“It’s a false rhyme: it sounds like it should rhyme, but it doesn’t. If Glen had let me finish Wichita Lineman, I probably would have corrected those lines, as I really don’t like false rhymes.” Speaking by phone from his home in New York, Webb is laughing as he imagines the idea of a “corrected” version of such a masterpiece. He knows better than almost anyone that a song’s fate depends on many factors.
He explains: “Nobody gives a damn about rhymes in songs today.
“But songwriters do. I do, so do Paul Simon and Paul McCartney. Chance is a huge factor in this business. Some songs slip by that deserve more attention.
“There are so many transparently bad songs that top the chart, you realise success has nothing to do with how good a song is.”
In 2019,Wichita Lineman gained one of its greatest accolades, when the US Congress added Campbell’s version to its National Recording Registry Library – a nuclear-proof bunker home to America’s greatest works of art. To celebrate, Webb played the song to a VIP audience in that same bunker in Washington DC.
He recalls: “I went through huge steel doors that can withstand a nuclear blast and played Wichita Lineman. The acoustics in that bunker were wild. I represent the generation that grew up under the nuclear threat, so there was some symmetry to performing there, when Glen’s recording was placed in there to last forever.”
Webb was born on August 15, 1946, almost a year to the day that a nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki.
Growing up in rural Oklahoma, he learnt to play piano in the choir of the Baptist ministry of his father, Robert.
A former US Marine, Robert lent Jimmy $500 to get started as a songwriter, but warned his son: “This songwriting thing will break your heart.”
Jimmy, now 77, laughs: “Dad was 100 per cent right about that. At the time, I thought dad was a square who didn’t know what the heck he was talking about.
“The first song of mine to get recorded was on an album by The Supremes. I got a cheque for $350 and phoned my father to say, ‘See, dad, I can make money from this.’
“Dad told me: ‘Son, it’s going to take a lot more than one song.’ That’s a realisation every songwriter has to learn: it takes more than one song to do this.”
Nonetheless, at first it seemed Webb had the Midas touch.
In 1968, aged just 22, By The Time I Get To Phoenix and Up, Up And Away were both nominated for Song Of The Year at the Grammys, with the latter taking the title.The songwriter admits: “I thought, ‘Maybe this isn’t as hard as I’d thought it was going to be.’
I got a little full of myself for a year or so, thinking that any time I need some money then, hey, I’d just write a hit song. That was a dreadful mistake. I should have realised I was just the luckiest man alive.”
The hits kept coming, but eventually Webb succumbed to drug addiction.
His low point came in 1973, when he fell unconscious after snorting the hallucinogenic drug PCP with Without You singer Harry Nilsson. When Webb woke up, he was no longer able to play piano – because he didn’t know what the instrument was for.
Speaking candidly about the trauma,Webb says: “Harry and I both thought we were taking cocaine. That’s not so admirable in itself, but it’s less lethal than PCP, which is a godawful drug.
“I had the bad trip to end all trips. I don’t know how to describe the experience of looking at a piano and not knowing how it worked. I knew I’d once known how to work a piano, but that its knowledge was now lost to me.
“The keyboard was now gobbledygook, as the black and white keys just made my head hurt.”
Weeks later, Webb’s ability returned overnight as he sat at the piano and suddenly played Amazing Grace.
He enthuses: “Being given a second chance like that is going to change your life. If I feel angry or frustrated, I go back to that moment when I realised I could play piano again, knowing life could be a lot worse.” Webb eventually became an acclaimed singer-songwriter in his own right, while his songs continued to be recorded by stars including Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson, Donna Summer and Willie Nelson. Frank Sinatra was particularly enamoured by Webb’s songwriting – but the pair’s relationship remained formal, as Webb explains: “I was 19 when I first met Mr Sinatra. We hit it off straight away and he’d tell me stories. But I continued to call him ‘Mr Sinatra,’ because going from that to ‘Hi, Frank!’ is a leap I was never prepared to make.
“In my show, I joke that the reason I never called him ‘Frank’ is because I didn’t want to end up dead in a dumpster.
“But Mr Sinatra wasn’t a gangster: he was a gentle, sweet soul who thought songwriting was everything to him. He was the greatest singer ever, because of how he caressed every word, giving each word its own little life in a song.”
IN Webb’s show, which visits London on May 28, the father of six shares more of the extraordinary stories behind his songs, as well as performing them. He believes he might be among the last of A GENERATION of classic songwriters, but emphasises that there are musicians today who share his talent – including pop superstar Taylor Swift.Webb recalls: “I knew Taylor Swift was great the first time I heard her, when she was a teenager with her song Seventeen.
“She’s in touch with the traditional roots of songwriting, because her songs have that wistful quality you find in standards like My Funny Valentine. She writes excellent songs about regret.” Webb would also like to work with Adele, saying: “We’d probably get along well and come up with a pretty good song,” but admits songwriting is harder now, because he wants his new music to live up to his classics.
ButWebb reveals he has ideas for potential future classics, revealing: “I want to write the definitive song about Ava Gardner. She was a farm kid, very unsophisticated, who didn’t take herself seriously as an actress. Her transformation from country bumpkin, there’s a resonance with my experience.
“I have maybe 20 great unfinished songs in my head, but I’d be very surprised to hear any songwriter who says he doesn’t have a couple of those.”
Maybe Adele should get in touch with Jimmy Webb to see if they can create a song as good as Wichita Lineman together?
‘Mr Sinatra wasn’t a gangster; he was a gentle, sweet soul who thought songwriting was everything’