‘All The Way To Reno’: the R.E.M. song written as a “sick tribute” to Jimmy Webb
Sometimes the best songwriters work behind the scenes. Jimmy Webb was one such songwriter. Born in 1946, the composer and singer has crafted a dizzying number of American classics. Despite shunning the limelight to pen tracks for artists such as Art Garfunkel, Glen Campbell, and The 5th Dimension, Webb established an incredibly distinctive style. Here, R.E.M pay homage to the musical world of Jimmy Webb with their 2001 track, ‘All The Way To Reno (You’re Gonna Be A Star)’.
Of course, that wasn’t the song’s original title. It was initially called ‘Jimmy Webb on Mars’ and was written by guitarist Peter Buck for R.E.M’s 2001 album Reveal. The group’s previous release, 1998’s Up, saw them adopt a more electronic sound, with synthesisers, samplers and drum machines taking the place of guitars, basses and acoustic drums. ‘All the Way to Reno’, however, is a throwback to the group’s roots.
Buck used the track to spotlight Jimmy Webb, a composer whose music they had bonded over in their early days. In the liner notes to the In Time compilation album, Peter Buck explains that the song was both written and arranged to pay homage to the songwriter. “From the six-string bass intro, to the semi-rococo chord changes and through the bridge to the outro, this was musically a kind of sick tribute to a songwriter who we all admire.”
Such admiration is well deserved. Webb wrote several songs for Glen Campbell, including the unforgettable ‘Witchita Lineman’, which R.E.M. covered live on occasion. Speaking about the track on the BBC’s Soul Music program, Webb explained how the song was inspired by a long drive along the Kansas-Oklahoma border. During the ride, he spotted a solitary telephone lineman working at the top of a tall telephone pole.
“I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles and there was a man on top of it talking on the telephone,” Webb said. “He was gone very quickly, and I had another, you know, 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. It was a splendidly cinematic image that I just kind of lifted out of my deep memory while I was writing this song about an ordinary guy, you know, working-class type of dude.” When Webb got home, he sat down at his Hammond organ and wrote yet another masterpiece.
This track is a tribute to Webb’s era-defining songcraft. Make sure you check it out below.
