If I had to make a list of all-time favourite pop songs number one without doubt is You Never Give Me Your Money by the Beatles. It is a song that I can hear numerous times in a row and after I’m tired of hearing it and finally turn it off–until the next time I hear it numerous times again–I’m still in awe over its structure, its melodies, the fantastic singing of McCartney–as though he becomes three voices in one. Although I won’t bore you, dear worst-reader, with the rest of my all-time fav song list, there’s one other song on it that need be mentioned because the singer that made it famous recently passed.
Wichita Lineman by Glen Campbell
There are songs out there that I will never forget hearing in the morning as my simpleton clock-radio-alarm woke me up every weekday morning to attend public schooling in my beloved and missed suburban hell #americant. I don’t recall the first time I ever heard the song–although I know the day, date, time I first heard You Never Give Me Your Money. Still, Glen Campbell’s version of “Wichita Lineman” rings in my ears whenever an alarm wakes me up. Another song I hear with alarms–but, oddly, is not on my list of best songs–is from CSN&Y…. That’s another worst-blog post. Indeed.
Not only the melody and simple structure of this song fascinates but the lyrics were probably the first that ever drove me to ask uncle Billy-Bob:
Billy-Bob, what the hail is this hear song about?
I am a lineman for the county and I drive the main road; Searchin’ in the sun for another overload
Billy-Bob: The song is about a working man. Overloaded telephone wires are what keeps him at work.
I hear you singin’ in the wire, I can hear you through the whine; And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line
Billy-Bob: When he’s working he can tap into the phones lines of the whole county and when he does that he hears the voice of the woman he loves, the love of his life–a Wichita lady. He can even hear her while he’s working and there’s a “whine” in 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
Billy-Bob: Rain, because of the electricity running through the lines, is the only thing that might give this working man a break. If it snows in the south–as it may be expected to do according to a weather man???–there’ll be no time for a vacation anyway. He’s a working man that works because…
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time
Billy-Bob: That, my boy, is simply one of the greatest declarations of love ever written in a got-damn pop-song because it’s about a working man who has a purpose: to love a Wichita woman!
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line
[Instrumental Interlude]
And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time
And the Wichita Lineman is still on the line
[Instrumental to end]
But uncle Billy-Bob, how cause this is such a great song?
Billy-Bob: Because, grasshopper, this song broke some serious boundaries back in the day. It transcended country music because of the way Glen Campbell sang it and performed it.
My use-less eating, worthless, worst-soul is forever indebted to him for it.
RIP Glen Campbell.
Rant onwards.
-T
worstwriter 