Which road was the ‘Wichita Lineman’ working on?
“I am a lineman for the county/ And I drive the main roads,” is perhaps one of the greatest and most famous opening lines to a country song ever written. ‘Wichita Lineman’ needs no introduction.
In this sense, the precise geography of the track is less important than the impact itself, being regularly cited as one of the best and most seismic additions to the respective pop and country canons – Glen Campbell took the reins on the vocals, and Jimmy Webb was responsible for the all-important lyrics. Together, they were undeniably a dream team.
Yet as much as ‘Wichita Lineman’ has very much gone on to stand on its own two feet, it’s worth remembering just how much it was primarily influenced by the roots it came from. Campbell wanted another “geographical” song off the back of ‘By The Time I Get to Phoenix’ in 1965, and sent Webb away with the task of taking inspiration from the world around him.
As such, the songwriter found himself driving one day along the vast and empty stretches of the Oklahoma panhandle, lined dutifully with nothing but telegraph poles and empty space, when he came across one singular lineman sitting on his own, and talking on his phone. That was enough to spark an idea, but the physical location had to fall to a bit of creative license.
He ended up obviously rooting the song in Wichita, Kansas, but nevertheless, that expanse of road was seared into his mind for the rest of time – the original road, making up part of the Route 412 stretching from Oklahoma to Arkansas, will always be the landmark of where the lineman was first found, as much as Wichita eventually took the crown.
What was Glen Campbell’s first reaction to ‘Wichita Lineman’?
Despite having seemingly hit on a stroke of genius, Webb was actually pretty hesitant to offer up his work, as he somehow saw its lyric and structure as incomplete. It transpired that he must have been the only one to feel that way, though, because as soon as Campbell hit play on the demo he’d been sent, he began to cry with homesickness.
In this sense, Webb was surprised to learn that not only had the singer recorded it, but got the Wrecking Crew involved with rounding out the sound and, above all else, polishing the rough diamond into a masterpiece. As the songwriter modestly put it himself, I just tried to take an ordinary guy and open him up and say, ‘Look, there’s this great soul, and there’s this great aching and this great loneliness inside this person, and we’re all like that. We all have this capacity for these huge feelings.'”
Of course, that lonely lineman out on the road could never have known he was the stunning inspiration for such a corner of music history. Hunting him down would have been impossible – Webb said he was like an “apparition”, only there so fleetingly before his car had already zoomed on past. It was a nanosecond of a moment, but its impact lasted forever.
When it all boils down to it, that’s really the only thing that matters when it comes to a song like ‘Wichita Lineman’. Not the context, not particularly the history, just the image – just one man out on the road, dreaming and pining for love and a better life. No matter the circumstances or the setting, there’s something pretty universal in that.
