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 songs enigmatic mood seemed to capture the tensions in America at a moment of crisis. Fusing a dribble of bass, searing strings, tremolo guitar and Campbells plaintive vocals, Webbs paean to the American West describes a telephone linemans longing for an absent lover, who he hears singing in the wire and like all good love songs, its an SOS from the heart. Mixing closelistening, 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 latetwentieth century through the prism of a song that has been covered by myriad artists in the intervening... | Dylan Jones The Wichita Lineman : Searching in the Sun for the World's