The song Bob Dylan called the greatest ever written: “I just held two notes down… it’s shivery, icy, almost like outer space kind of sound. Glen went crazy and said ‘We have to get that, we gotta put that on the fade’” - The story of Wichita Lineman
Jimmy Webb was driving through the high plains of north-west Oklahoma when the inspiration for his biggest-ever song came to him.
It was a scorching summer afternoon and as the Grammy award-winning songwriter drove, vast swathes of grassy landscape stretched for as far as the eye could see. The terrain was flat and featureless, except for telephone poles positioned at the side of the road all the way to the horizon.
In the distance, Webb noticed a man perched near the top of one of these poles. As Webb got closer he could see the man was holding a phone and talking into it. The image of this anonymous lone figure toiling in searing heat in this vast landscape stuck in his mind as he drove on.
Webb knew this utility worker was a ‘lineman’, employed to check the telephone lines. But he began to wonder if the man might actually be talking to his girlfriend far away, and what was going through his mind as he worked in total isolation out on the high plains.
https://www.musicradar.com/artists/guitarists/the-song-bob-dylan-called-the-greatest-ever-written-the-story-of-wichita-lineman
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