Why Glen Campbell’s ode to Phoenix is geographically “impossible”
Glen Campbell always gave the impression of a true American countryman, like he could stand against the rolling hills with an eagle on his arm and would never look out of place.
OK, maybe that would be slightly overdoing it – but the point remained that the country legend stood tall as one of the biggest musical beacons America ever held in its midst, and that was something he played into ever more once he realised that was the key to the records flying off the shelves.
That stroke of genius was something landed on rather innovatively by Jimmy Webb when he wrote ‘Wichita Lineman’ back in 1968 and changed the country landscape irrevocably forever with its mournful, yearning ode to the high plains and telegraph poles of the outback of Oklahoma.
But as it turns out, one of the greatest songs ever written was only conceived off the back of another geographical success, in the form of ‘By The Time I Get to Phoenix’, penned by Webb in 1965 for Johnny Rivers and covered by Campbell two years later. The roaring success of the single was what ultimately inspired ‘Wichita Lineman’ – but it wasn’t without the admission that the Phoenix track had one glaring problem.
Webb’s romantic reflections may take him through the scores of Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Oklahoma, but even a quick glance at a map of the US would tell you that this would take some scale of back-and-forth cross-country trekking to actually achieve. In short, it was complete and utter nonsense, and geographically impossible.
In fairness to Webb, the accuracy of the figurative road trip was never something which really crossed his mind. As he later recalled, “A guy approached me one night after a concert, and he showed me how it was impossible for me to drive from LA to Phoenix, and then how far it was to Albuquerque. In short, he told me, ‘This song is impossible.’ And so it is.”
But in the songwriter’s mind, this was not a blight on the track, and only added to an element of its mystical allure. “It’s a kind of fantasy about something I wish I would have done, and it sort of takes place in a twilight zone of reality,” he said, reflecting on his break-up from Susan Horton, who went on to marry a cousin of Linda Ronstadt.
Those geography puzzles clearly also only served to be a sticking point for those who seem to have nothing better to do with their time, because to the rest of the world, ‘By The Time I Get to Phoenix’ served as part of a true country revolution that put America well and truly back on the map amid a 1960s wash of British rock and roll.
The ability to connect to the listener simply by shouting out a place that they know was not lost on Campbell either, because as soon as he realised his version of the song was a hit, he was straight back on the phone to Webb to create him another song in ode to the 50 states. That’s how ‘Wichita Lineman’ was born, and the rest is history.
