{"product_id":"wichita-lineman-book-dylan-jones-9780571353408","title":"The Wichita Lineman","description":"'It's just another song to me. I've written 1,000 of them and it's really just another one.' Jimmy Webb   'When I heard it I cried. It made me cry because I was homesick. It's just a masterfully written song.' Glen Campbell  The sound of 'Wichita Lineman' was the sound of ecstatic solitude, but then its hero was the quintessential loner. What a great metaphor he was: a man who needed a woman more than he actually wanted her.   Written in 1968 by Jimmy Webb, 'Wichita Lineman' is the first philosophical country song: a heartbreaking torch ballad still celebrated for its mercurial songwriting genius fifty years later. It was recorded by Glen Campbell in LA with a legendary group of musicians known as 'the Wrecking Crew', and something about the song's enigmatic mood seemed to capture the tensions in America at a moment of crisis. Fusing a dribble of bass, searing strings, tremolo guitar and Campbell's plaintive vocals, Webb's paean to the American West describes a telephone lineman's longing for an absent lover, who he hears 'singing in the wire' - and like all good love songs, it's an SOS from the heart.   Mixing close-listening, interviews and travelogue, Dylan Jones explores the legacy of a record that has entertained and haunted millions for over half a century. What is it about this song that continues to seduce listeners, and how did the parallel stories of Campbell and Webb - songwriters and recording artists from different ends of the spectrum - unfold in the decades following? Part biography, part work of musicological archaeology, The Wichita Lineman opens a window on to America in the late-twentieth century through the prism of a song that has been covered by myriad artists in the intervening decades.  'Americana in the truest sense: evocative and real.' Bob Stanley","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49568107626769,"sku":"GOR010033864","price":13.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49636878811409,"sku":"GOR010000891","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50315367350545,"sku":"GOR013923525","price":12.69,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50728258961681,"sku":"CIN0571353401G","price":8.13,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51003663778065,"sku":"NIN9780571353408","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53499408580881,"sku":"GOR010119165","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0571353401.jpg?v=1772273170","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/wichita-lineman-book-dylan-jones-9780571353408","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}