The lyric Glen Campbell thought defined his legacy: “It just blew me away”
By the time that Glen Campbell released his version of ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ in 1975, his legacy should already have been more than assured. One of the most talented session musicians of his generation, that’s his guitar you can hear recordings like ‘Hello Mary Lou’ by Ricky Nelson, ‘Viva Las Vegas’ and ‘What’d I Say’ by Elvis. ‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’ by the Righteous Brothers. You can hear him playing on The Beach Boys’ ‘I Get Around’, on Sinatra’s ‘Strangers in the Night’ and on ‘Mama Tried’ by Merle Haggard.
Far more than just a sideman, though, Campbell was best known in the 60s for his polished pop-country solo work, which so showcased his airy and beautiful, smooth and warm tenor on songs such as the Jimmy Webb-penned all-time classic ‘Wichita Lineman’—easily one of the greatest songs ever written and one of the greatest recordings ever released—as well as his timeless takes on tracks like ‘Gentle on My Mind’, ‘Galveston’, ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix’, ‘Little Green Apples’, ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ and plenty more.
Off the back of his musical success throughout the 1960s, and after an appearance as a guest host on the legendary Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Campbell was offered the chance to host his own television variety show, and so, from 1968 up until 1972, he hosted The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour.
But, by 1974, his star was somehow fading. His television show had come to an end, and his music was not connecting with the wider public early in the new decade as it had done in the last one. Though he was still doing well with the traditional country audience, and seeing some success in the Country singles charts, his albums were routinely failing to break into the top 100 in the pop charts.
His gorgeous rendition of Charles Aznavour’s song, which lays bare the brutal marriage between ageing and regretful nostalgia, ‘Yesterday When I Was Young’, gave a clue as to the place that Campbell found himself, and to the way he viewed himself and his career. But, the same thing that drew him to a lyric like “yesterday when I was young, there were so many songs left to be sung” must also have drawn him to another new song with a similar opening line at around the same time, “I’ve been walking these streets so long, singing the same old song”.
Where ‘Yesterday When I Was Young’ is a bitter lament at the wasted years that had gone before, ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ is a much more positive, defiant battle rally, and a cry of “Here I am, this is who I am”.
“There’s been a load of compromising on the road to my horizon”, Campbell sings leading into the chorus, “but I’m gonna be where the lights are shining on me”.
“I was driving in Hollywood and listening to an album-cut station when I heard the song,” he later recalled of the first time he ever heard ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’. “It just blew me away.” It blew the music buying population away, too, and returned Campbell to the top of the pop and country charts, as well as seeing him nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance Male, as well as for Record of the Year. Though the lyrics were written by Larry Weiss, Campbell later went on to describe the song by saying that “I thought it was my autobiography set to song”.
Having almost lost his place in the spotlight, it was no wonder that Campbell so related to the lyrics, and so, no wonder why he could sell the story in the song so well. For the rest of his life, no matter how much compromising he had to do, Campbell stayed where the lights shone on him, and he stayed shining, too.
