MY WICHITA LINEMAN

And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time.

Possibly the greatest words in any love song, ever.
A love ballad in fifteen words. 
Sung by a tall, good-looking, supremely talented, Southern boy.

I have spent a few tears today. My first troubadour has died. Glen Campbell's music was the first music I wanted to own. He was also the subject of my very first blog post (August 11, 2013).

I was born and raised in Texas but my family was from Southwest Arkansas. We'd never been to Delight or Billstown but I remember my father always being interested in anything Glen Campbell did. Arkansas Boy making it good.

My Daddy loved to sing and we would travel with the car radio playing the latest hits, singing "Where's the Playground Suzie", "Galveston", "By the Time I Get To Phoenix." I was too young to recognize the leavings and longings of popular music.

When I was about ten, I wanted a Glen Campbell album for Christmas. A couple of days before Christmas, I found a wrapped album with my name on it, under the tree. I remember having to live with anticipation of what I knew had to be a Glen Campbell Album.

Tearing the paper that Christmas morning revealed an illustrated vinyl record of Walt Disney's Peter Pan. I was crushed and panged with guilt, trying to hide my feelings and say thank you for a gift I didn't want. I remember thinking my parents still thought of me as a little girl. But at night, I was lying in bed, listening to my transistor play "Wichita Lineman."  

 The double platinum album of the same name won the 1968 Grammy for Best Engineered Record, Non Classical and topped charts in Country Western, Pop and Adult Contemporary.  Written by Jimmy Webb, ("Up, Up and Away," "Galveston," "MacArthur Park" to name a few), Wichita Lineman is ranked 195/500 on The Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Songs of all Time. Of course. It should be higher ranked but it is only two below "Freebird." Or Freebird should be two below the Lineman. 

Please, Power and Light, give this man a vacation. He can't work because everything reminds him of his beloved. Jimmy Webb doesn't even mention the word love. He doesn't have to. Needing and wanting. All that anyone really wants. Which came first? Need, want, love. This is a commitment for all time. This is open and honest.

And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time.

I love this song. It never fails to pull at me. I love Glen Campbell. He was my Wichita Lineman. No one is shocked today but we are sad. Life is better celebrated than mourned.

 Peter Pan resides in a flea market somewhere.  About five years ago, my parents gave me a birthday present they said I would like.  At the first rip of the paper, I could see Glen Campbell's smiling face.   

We will always want him.