Jimmy Webb once said, in an interview with Glen Campbell, that he drove by a lineman up on a phone pole, and he was only in his vision for a second, then he left him in his rear-view mirror. He thought that was an excellent metaphor for an ordinary guy. Then he said he wanted to convey that ordinary guys are still capable of extraordinary thoughts.
This song hit me in the gut when I was a little kid in the late 60's. All I knew was that it brought out a variety of emotions and the music struck a nerve of longing, sadness, and memories of my Dad, who passed away just a couple of years after the song came out. Still one of the greatest songs ever written by Jimmy & sung/played by Glen.
I too was a kid in the 60’s and the line “ l need a small vacation but it don’t look rain”,puzzled me.l get it now,obviously,because the poor guy can only work when the weather is favourable.I’m astounded that Billy didn’t pick on that.
Listening to Jimmy Webb's music these last few weeks after decades of ignoring it, the man is brilliant. Certainly one of the best songwriters of the last 60 years.
Billy as observational, intelligent and entertaining as ever. Despite being a true songwriting/performing genius in his own right is always humble enough to highlight and praise the influence of other artists/writers work on his own career and Jimmy Webb is certainly up there with the greats.
@Huawei is a criminal organization. This video isn't about Billy performing the song. It's about Billy *analyzing" the dong. Different process entirely.
I used to think this was a horrible sickly sentimental song - not heavy enough for my youth when I wanted to make a statement! But now, it brings me to tears: I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time‘ Feel the sense of yearning, fear of loss. My mum is suddenly getting older - and it breaks my heart cos ‚ I need her more than want her, and I want her for all time‘.
I flew powerline patrol in a small plane. 200ft over the lines at 100mph. I thought of this song many times flying along an endless stretch in North Dakota in the wintertime.
Oh, so it is true, this song is about powerlines! I thought maybe it was about trains! What do I know?! You mean you were supposed to be checking for breaks in the line at 100 miles an hour?! And only 200 feet above the lines or wires?! Hard to believe! Well, good for you! Yes, I guess this song gave a lot of people comfort perhaps?! 😀👋👌
i think Billy did a great job of explaining the imagery of Wichita Lineman. The visuals of solitude and dedication to tough manual thankless work in the midst of rain and snow could be lost on folks who have never gotten out of the city and done long (day upon days) drives in "the sticks". AM radio became your best friend at those times. And if Glen Campbell singing this song came on the air, everything became right in the world once again.
This song is about a POWER not communications lineman, power lines get overloaded not telephone lines. Being a lineman for the county would be a rural lineman where the power lines run for miles across open country vulnerable to the elements much more than in cities. As a retired lineman the wind on a very cold winter night makes the lines really sing and is a very lonely sound. When you're out there on top of a pole in the cold you think about being home warm with your loved one. The work is long and hard and a rain day is so welcome. The man is also a romantic very much in love and being in the middle of nowhere makes you all the more lonely.
“Billy deconstructs the song”. Boy he really did do a number on it. He absolutely disrespected it and ruined it completely. What a lost opportunity to create his own best cover of it. How disappointing from a great talent in his own right. Doesn’t even come close to the magnificent song and tune that Jimmy Webb, Glen Campbell and all those superlative musicians created.
I believe the point was Webb's ability to write a timeless love song intertwined with the mundane , taken for granted occupation . Jimmy web could write a song about someone leaving a cake out in the rain , in some park somewhere , and make it a classic !
The criticisms below are hilarious. This isn't a performance. It's not a cover version. He makes it very clear at the outset what he's doing, why he's doing it, and the fact that it isn't a fully fleshed-out arrangement with all of the original chord changes and harmonies is irrelevant. I'm a composer and this is a rare look into how musicians think. I was particularly impressed that he knows who Thomas Hart Benton and Samuel Barber are.
Longtime fans of Billy Joel know that he's a reader and a scholar. He may sound like a working class Long Island guy--which he is--but he's also a pop music scholar and a first-class composer. Never underestimate him. He *will* surprise you every time. There's a reason his lyrics are so clever and his compositions have stood the test of time.
You don't have to be a composer to know who Samuel Barber is given he wrote one of the most iconic cinematographic pieces of music of modern times which unfortunately is stereotyped with sadness because of the films it was used in etc but listened in isolation away from the fims is a beautiful piece of work. Just my opinion of course.
@@ohboy2118 opinions are ment to be share for the best of all to understand we share the most of what the music world has to offer for our pleasure. S Barber adagio ? For strings is an inspiring soft and progressive graduated uper" céleste" notes melody that goes deep inside our soul . This Vietnam war movie in what was incorporate Barber chef d'oeuvre is also an intense time in mankind history. Obviously the beauty of the music clash with the horreur of the film..but the conjonction I felt was the intensité. Bien sur..ce n'est que mon opinion
@@TheJackflash85 Wichita is one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time and just love what Billy does here. I mean, how many reverent dead serious versions do we need anyways? He's just having some good natured spontaneous fun here with his friend Jimmy Webb and what is probably his greatest song. You can tell Jimmy loved it and it was a treat for the audience.
When I first heard this on the radio, I didn't know who it was, but it hit me like a bolt of lightning out of the vast blue sky. The beautiful ethereal vocal sounded at once ordinary and old fashioned, and yet somehow psychedelic, like maybe what Pink Floyd would have done, but still in that down to earth everyday sort of way... sort of intimate, yet universal. Such an ordinary song ,but deep and extraordinary at the same time. I had no idea what it was about, because in those days I paid little attention to lyrics, being intoxicated by the shear beauty of the sounds, and yet I immediately felt a vision of wide open spaces and the huge sky. Years later I figured out that was exactly what was happening- a guy by himself lost in the vast space as his mind and heart turned to his deep love that he could feel through the "wires". Pure poetry and sweeping vista of landscape painting in an intimate love letter in a lonely workman's thoughts. Art of the highest order.
Billy Joel, Jimmy Webb, and Glen Glen Campbell, all my favorites. But sorry Billy, the Wichita Lineman isn't just a telephone repair guy, he works on high tension electrical lines and risks his life every day, while thinking of the woman he loves. Telephones don't overload, power lines do. BTW, just as you observed, he represents the dignity of the common working man struggling to survive.
The mistake of looking for an overload would be Jimmy Webb because several interviews he talks about it being telephone lines and was inspired by seeing a telephone lineman sitting on a pole talking to someone.
@@Versul1 I don't doubt that. Never saw the interviews, but in the minds of some the two jobs might be interchangeable. Some of the other lingo lead me to believe it was talking about electrical rather then telephone lines. I guess it's really not that important. It's still one of the greatest songs ever written or recorded.
@@rondevous5685 It is very easy to find on a Google search. I am sure you are right about phone lines not having overloads. I also know that Jimmy Webb doesn't know the profession and probably confused the 2 lineman jobs.
This may be 50 years late, but I was thinking of the high voltage distribution lines, 250KV 3 phase everywhere except Texas, where it's 500KV. The Lineman for the county. The whole County. Observe the power lines throughout a county. Now we have powerline right-of-ways with crushed rock roads under the towers. Now we may not drive the main road. Overloads would manifest at substations or where trees fall or on the snow and Ice weigh down the line and it shorts or breaks the line. At this point I think we should stop and admit it's not perfect, but it's excellent.
Just realized there is one more level of "wow" to this song. This guy's job is all about maintaining communication between thousands of people and the storyline gives us his own yearning to communicate his deepest feelings with his own soulmate. Can't believe it's taken this long for me figure this out. Remarkable song. Billy Joel, the great storyteller.
Let's google search on that. I'm seeing almost exclusively the sources saying it's telephone line. I see you're passionate about the song. Me too. Instead of hitting 'no' you could have just said hi, I'm nicky, and i like that song as well. @@nickyl9040
Jimmy Webb and Billy Joel. Wow! Billy Joel does some really nice tasteful chord changes. One great composer to another...... Yes Mr. Joel understands and describes the romance and personal touch just perfectly.
@@scarlettina710 I've heard it now, and never want to hear it again. I loved hearing Tom sing She's a lady and a couple of others, but it seemed like he spent more time covering other's songs than singing his own, so my appreciation for his voice had left by the mid 70's. I would have loved it had Billy eventually sung the song as it's written because his voice is so crystal clear, but this belongs to Glen Campbell. That is who Jimmy wrote it for, and while many have covered it, Glen perfected it. If you see this, a few weeks ago on The Voice, a group called "Girl named Tom" which were 2 brothers and a sister did Wichita Lineman and I can still listen to them and get goosebumps. ruclips.net/video/WPUNAY9L_Zs/видео.html I fully expect them to end up in the top 3, possibly the winner because I've never heard harmony as flawless as theirs.
@@valerieharris2395 Their version was similar to what Little Big Town did as a tribute to Glen at the CMA's, and to be perfectly honest, Girl Named Tom was BETTER than LBT!!! We voted for them, and ONLY them every week. I predicted at their audition that they would win. They were SO polished every performance. I already have a bunch of their music on my ipod and I love them so much.
100%! This composition has haunted me since I first heard it in 1968. It captures a level of feeling in the heart that transcends pretty much any other song that I’ve ever heard.
"Billy Joel said, and it was at the Songwriter's Hall of Fame ceremony, that it was a song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts. That brought tears to my eyes because he came closer than anyone to getting it." quote from Jimmy Webb:)!
Sometimes genius melodies and haunting timeless songs don't stand up to analysis. They just convey emotion. The project feeling. They embrace the intangible. At least sweet green icing didn't get mentioned in the lineman's lunch box. This song is a work of genius. The envelope of sound is just gorgeous. Over analyse art and you kill it. Just let it be.
I could imagine this being helpful to a young aspiring songwriter or someone who is in the clutches of painful writers' block. Takes you inside the process a bit. Otherwise you can get paralyzed waiting for some intangible "muse", then convince yourself, " oh I could never write something that good." If you look under the hood a bit, you can see music creation a bit differently?
I believe it was more about power lines than phone lines, but BJ’s assessment of the song was amazing ! Thank you .. Jimmy, Glen’s rendition is like no other. I will always think of my Dad who has passed, but is NEVER FORGOTTEN 🙏🏻 Thx Dad for playing this song.
For those who don't understand poetry, Billy Joel does a great job explaining this song. I saw Billy in concert last year and he sounds better than in this video. If you have the opportunity, do yourself a favor and see him in concert.
I saw Guns N Roses perform this song last night and I loved it. For a Rock and Metal fan I was blown away. I think Jimmy Webb wrote some great songs. Glen Campbell singing them is proof. REM do a great version too. Axl Rose and Michael Stipe are good friends so maybe this is the reason they covered it. Who knows?
I’ve heard of Billy Joel for years, but I guess I’ve never really seen him until now perhaps?! Just been learning about Jimmy Webb, being such a great writer of songs for Glenn Campbell and others! He sounds pretty fabulous and a legend
This description was almost as brilliant as the song itself. Jimmy Webb took the dreary lives of everyday Americans and made them all heroes, and all with this one song. Wow...
@@Versul1Typical Billy Joel. He does this in concerts too… he’s an entertainer. I live on Long Island.. used to it. He doesn’t come near Glen Campbell but he’s not trying to.. just putting his spin on it.
I am 75 years old and I just learned to play this song a few months ago. I remember hearing this song, and Galveston while I was in the army..... They always made me lonesome for home. They are still special to me. But, Billy is leaving out a few notes during the chorus that sounds almost like mores code. It's an e,f,e,c right after the Cadd9.
Billy had good intentions of explaining the song but he missed the mark by thinking it was telephone. I do forgive him. Not everyone understands that Jimmy Webbs words were about the high powered linemen. Every electrician who has heard this song relates to it. Phone line overloads can't sing like the power line can
I did read an interview with JImmy Webb and he said he was inspired by seeing telephone linemen up poles in the middle of nowhere, using a handset plugged into the line to test and wondered who they were talking to. Just a story off the internet though of course, as they all are.
You are correct, though I don't doubt that the inspiration came from the phone guy up the pole. Neither telephone nor cable TV lines carry that much juice (I used to install cable - have gaffed up more than a few poles). Neither phone nor cable make a whine. Power lines do. Also, if he works for the county, it must be for an electric utility. I've never heard of a county-owned phone service. Still, a great song that I think does honor to those who get go out in all kinds of weather, day and night, to maintain and repair those high voltage lines, without which we would all be literally in the dark.
Telephone Lineman. I hear her singing in the wire? Besides Jimmy actually says it's a telephone lineman in an interview. "And then, as it happened, I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles and there was a man on top, talking on a telephone. "He was gone very quickly, and I had another 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. It was a splendidly vivid, cinematic image that I lifted out of my deep memory while I was writing this song."
It’s nice to see Jim Webb’s Wichita Lineman get some notice. It’s a song that I have loved for over 50 years. Thank you Jim Webb for giving birth to it and thank you Glen Campbell for giving it life. ❤
I've been working on Telecom since the eighties. When I was just a boy I heard this song on the radio knowing nothing about love or telephone lines. Now I'm retired and this beautiful song means a lot to me.
I have been searching for this since 2003. Saw this performance and the fleshing out of this song that I had never heard before. Thank you for posting this.
Billy Joel, what a beautiful and soulful interpretation of this American gem. I now respect and appreciate you more than ever, because you clearly aim to get the deep emotional heart of the song and the person in it. And a beautiful rendering too. Thank you sir!
Thank you so very much for posting this as I've been hoping someone would do that for years!! I remember watching this show and being so moved. This is one of my favorite song (and I'm a very eclectic musician) and love Joel's live rendition. Haunting
I love everything from ABBA to ZZTop. My taste is very eclectic also. If it's good music, it's good music! My Spotify has a pretty wide type of genres.
It's difficult to understand all the negative comments here. He is .... aw forget it. They are nostalgic or biased because of their associations. They are not musicians. Billy is sharing his thoughts and outlining the chords. Why does that offend people? He is unquestionably musical, and explains how the lyrics work for someone who is just discovering it. The down voters don't like a yankee, a city guy messing with their culture.
I really liked Mr Joel's analogies at the end of his commentary, before he played the song. As in, how anyone can be in that position of having great thoughts.... Thoughts that are as powerful as the best poetry on Earth, as empathetic as Jesus. I thought Billy conveyed that in that his speech very well. I also heard a little Long Island Sound in him too.... especially when one of is analogies was about a fishermen :-). Need I say more, that was directly from his hometown, to the locals.
Hard to explain what was in the mind of Jimmy when he wrote the lyrics of the his best melodies . Think of the « cake ice melting down » in Mcarthur park .
I have been told that I am an extraordinary man (naturally poetic, always presenting insight, listening deeply, etc.) but mostly I do ordinary things. I think there are many of us. It's nice to be noticed.
Billy- linemen travel in other states to help restore power. I think Glen what saying he loved women in those other states. it can happen... but line mans job was to restore power..
I think Billy was not quite getting all of the song. First of all, the city of Wichita Kansas is not in Wichita County. The county is much more west and more desolate than the city. The song is about a 'Wichita County' lineman. He may work on telephone lines in a pinch, but he is primarily a power grid lineman (searching for overloads) which is very dangerous on your own. Those are some lonely stretches of roads out there and on hot summer days it is sweltering as his company probably can't afford air conditioning in his rig. Every day he goes to work and may see a tractor or two pass by and maybe a car - that's it. The only person he talks to is a dispatcher on the radio. Most of the time a lineman can travel down the road a few miles in each direction to throw breakers up on the poles (using long wooden rods) to isolate the section of a power line he needs to repair. So he is rarely on the radio. He is lonely not only from the job but from what appears to be missing or breaking up with his love. The singing is not necessarily through telephone wires but is metaphor of his memory stimulated from the sounds from the high tension (high voltage) lines ("hear you through the whine") as they do in hot/humid weather. It's an endless job and he often contemplates future work based on the weather - looking for a long break if it rains for a few days. The stucato notes in the music are indeed mimicking Morse code over the wires because he may have to contact dispatch through maintence wires using that code when out of radio range and there are no repeaters on the lines for voice phone calls. At the end of the song the stucato notes are repeated and on Glen Cambell's studio version of the song they fade into echoing signals that keep going out over and over, bouncing here and there - like sending a desperate message all around in hope that his love will reply - which doesn't happen any more. It's about being isolated, over worked, uncomfortable, frustrated, lonely, and missing his love. It's my favorite Jimmy Webb song. It's sort of like the end of Sting's (in "The Police" band) song "Message In a Bottle" where he keeps singing, "Sending out an S.O.S." over and over, as if to never get a reply. Yes, he talks about a hundred billion bottles washing up on the shore (as the whole world is castaway), but songs don't have tell a story in sequence, especially at the end where they fade off repeating a theme as if it goes on forever.
This video is amazing. I just wish the sound was clearer. If anyone can help to rectify this please do. Billy Joel's interpretation and performance is amazing but sound quality is really bad. Please help!!!,
Knew Billy, when He was in a band called 'The Hassles & played a Hammond Organ. Cover band from L.I. We, both came up from that era . Many great Musicians and times..
In tornado, tempests, and trials, the linemen are there, first responders in snow and rain, flood and road disasters. In the middle of the upheavals, there to bring connection to Americans in need…..
One of the most beautiful songs ever written.
"And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time"
One of the 20th century's greatest lines.
Why ?
@@gregjameson2141 Because.!
I've always said that was the greatest song lyric ever
This song exists in a world of its own and every time I hear it, it takes me to that place. A masterpiece!!!
Whether that place is real, or imagined. They are both wonderful! ✌️♥️
Jimmy Webb once said, in an interview with Glen Campbell, that he drove by a lineman up on a phone pole, and he was only in his vision for a second, then he left him in his rear-view mirror. He thought that was an excellent metaphor for an ordinary guy. Then he said he wanted to convey that ordinary guys are still capable of extraordinary thoughts.
As you stated. ^^^
Yessss
@@piercehawke8021 ?¿
@@wagner9050 My reply was to the OP, agreeing with what he stated
I don’t think he was a telephone lineman….the man was an electric lineman by the description. ❤ I’m married to one.
Loneliness, heartache and hope. Put to words we all relate to. Jimmy was genius.
No, he wasn’t. He didn’t know the difference between an electrical lineman and a telephone man.
This song hit me in the gut when I was a little kid in the late 60's. All I knew was that it brought out a variety of emotions and the music struck a nerve of longing, sadness, and memories of my Dad, who passed away just a couple of years after the song came out. Still one of the greatest songs ever written by Jimmy & sung/played by Glen.
Yes. Same. Even as a young kid in the 60's it was such a soulful and touching song despite not understanding the lyrics
I too was a kid in the 60’s and the line “ l need a small vacation but it don’t look rain”,puzzled me.l get it now,obviously,because the poor guy can only work when the weather is favourable.I’m astounded that Billy didn’t pick on that.
I like the version Billy does here. Genuine reverence for the classic tune!!
Me too- there is something special about this song that is indefinable.
Listening to Jimmy Webb's music these last few weeks after decades of ignoring it, the man is brilliant. Certainly one of the best songwriters of the last 60 years.
On my fb news feed the other day, NPR asked: what song lyrics inspire you? I wrote in part the lyrics from "All I Know". Brilliant man.
I went to see him play last night (in London UK). Brilliant night, great stories. A legend who I have always wanted to see in person.
Same.. 2023..
The best...
Within a few weeks I heard and bought Wichita Lineman and By The Time I Get To Phoenix, and found the same man had written both. Ludicrously talented.
Billy as observational, intelligent and entertaining as ever. Despite being a true songwriting/performing genius in his own right is always humble enough to highlight and praise the influence of other artists/writers work on his own career and Jimmy Webb is certainly up there with the greats.
Who could down vote that?
@Huawei is a criminal organization. This video isn't about Billy performing the song. It's about Billy *analyzing" the dong. Different process entirely.
A wonderful tribute from ones true artist to another!!
Well said
As another songwriter said, those who make it, find themselves "respected by the others who got rained on too and made it through".
The Wichita Lineman is now installing internet fiber optic cable.
I used to think this was a horrible sickly sentimental song - not heavy enough for my youth when I wanted to make a statement!
But now, it brings me to tears:
I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time‘
Feel the sense of yearning, fear of loss. My mum is suddenly getting older - and it breaks my heart cos ‚ I need her more than want her, and I want her for all time‘.
YES!!
I flew powerline patrol in a small plane. 200ft over the lines at 100mph. I thought of this song many times flying along an endless stretch in North Dakota in the wintertime.
Oh, so it is true, this song is about powerlines! I thought maybe it was about trains! What do I know?! You mean you were supposed to be checking for breaks in the line at 100 miles an hour?! And only 200 feet above the lines or wires?! Hard to believe! Well, good for you! Yes, I guess this song gave a lot of people comfort perhaps?! 😀👋👌
Wow that is some job , how did you cope with the loneliness, and being out in the boonies, love to see that .
@@daveb6214 Not really a problem. Hotel and a good meal at the end of the day, and there are not many people I like being around.
You sound intriguing!
@@Love6187 maybe
i think Billy did a great job of explaining the imagery of Wichita Lineman. The visuals of solitude and dedication to tough manual thankless work in the midst of rain and snow could be lost on folks who have never gotten out of the city and done long (day upon days) drives in "the sticks".
AM radio became your best friend at those times. And if Glen Campbell singing this song came on the air, everything became right in the world once again.
Glen Campbell
That was beautifully expressed, Wesley.
I agree with 100% the people that do the hard work understand.
Yup. Truckdrivers.
May GOD Bless 'em!!!
I just found this song a month ago and watching the great Billy Joel explain it is fantastic
Love the story of Billy Joel's perspective as much as the song itself - one of Jimmy Webb's best.
Quite a tribute from one genius, legend American songwriter to another.
This song is about a POWER not communications lineman, power lines get overloaded not telephone lines. Being a lineman for the county would be a rural lineman where the power lines run for miles across open country vulnerable to the elements much more than in cities. As a retired lineman the wind on a very cold winter night makes the lines really sing and is a very lonely sound. When you're out there on top of a pole in the cold you think about being home warm with your loved one. The work is long and hard and a rain day is so welcome. The man is also a romantic very much in love and being in the middle of nowhere makes you all the more lonely.
A great song and Glen Campbell owns it.
Fantastic. Billy humorously deconstructs the song, then plays it straight and brings down the house. Jimmy Webb, god bless.
This is the first time I have seen this and makes me wish billy had recorded this in the 80s or 90s he would have done a killer version of it
“Billy deconstructs the song”. Boy he really did do a number on it. He absolutely disrespected it and ruined it completely. What a lost opportunity to create his own best cover of it. How disappointing from a great talent in his own right. Doesn’t even come close to the magnificent song and tune that Jimmy Webb, Glen Campbell and all those superlative musicians created.
I believe the point was Webb's ability to write a timeless love song intertwined with the mundane , taken for granted occupation . Jimmy web could write a song about someone leaving a cake out in the rain , in some park somewhere , and make it a classic !
Underrated comment!
The criticisms below are hilarious. This isn't a performance. It's not a cover version. He makes it very clear at the outset what he's doing, why he's doing it, and the fact that it isn't a fully fleshed-out arrangement with all of the original chord changes and harmonies is irrelevant. I'm a composer and this is a rare look into how musicians think. I was particularly impressed that he knows who Thomas Hart Benton and Samuel Barber are.
Longtime fans of Billy Joel know that he's a reader and a scholar. He may sound like a working class Long Island guy--which he is--but he's also a pop music scholar and a first-class composer. Never underestimate him. He *will* surprise you every time. There's a reason his lyrics are so clever and his compositions have stood the test of time.
You don't have to be a composer to know who Samuel Barber is given he wrote one of the most iconic cinematographic pieces of music of modern times which unfortunately is stereotyped with sadness because of the films it was used in etc but listened in isolation away from the fims is a beautiful piece of work. Just my opinion of course.
@@ohboy2118 opinions are ment to be share for the best of all to understand we share the most of what the music world has to offer for our pleasure. S Barber adagio ? For strings is an inspiring soft and progressive graduated uper" céleste" notes melody that goes deep inside our soul .
This Vietnam war movie in what was incorporate Barber chef d'oeuvre is also an intense time in mankind history.
Obviously the beauty of the music clash with the horreur of the film..but the conjonction I felt was the intensité.
Bien sur..ce n'est que mon opinion
No matter what and no matter how some people just don't get it! Billy Joel shows us what an amazing song this is and why. Bravo!
@@TheJackflash85 Wichita is one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time and just love what Billy does here. I mean, how many reverent dead serious versions do we need anyways? He's just having some good natured spontaneous fun here with his friend Jimmy Webb and what is probably his greatest song. You can tell Jimmy loved it and it was a treat for the audience.
RIP, Glen Campbell.
When I first heard this on the radio, I didn't know who it was, but it hit me like a bolt of lightning out of the vast blue sky. The beautiful ethereal vocal sounded at once ordinary and old fashioned, and yet somehow psychedelic, like maybe what Pink Floyd would have done, but still in that down to earth everyday sort of way... sort of intimate, yet universal. Such an ordinary song ,but deep and extraordinary at the same time. I had no idea what it was about, because in those days I paid little attention to lyrics, being intoxicated by the shear beauty of the sounds, and yet I immediately felt a vision of wide open spaces and the huge sky. Years later I figured out that was exactly what was happening- a guy by himself lost in the vast space as his mind and heart turned to his deep love that he could feel through the "wires". Pure poetry and sweeping vista of landscape painting in an intimate love letter in a lonely workman's thoughts. Art of the highest order.
Beautiful Description of a personal reaction to a great song !
Damn.....well said
Billy Joel, Jimmy Webb, and Glen Glen Campbell, all my favorites. But sorry Billy, the Wichita Lineman isn't just a telephone repair guy, he works on high tension electrical lines and risks his life every day, while thinking of the woman he loves. Telephones don't overload, power lines do.
BTW, just as you observed, he represents the dignity of the common working man struggling to survive.
The mistake of looking for an overload would be Jimmy Webb because several interviews he talks about it being telephone lines and was inspired by seeing a telephone lineman sitting on a pole talking to someone.
@@Versul1 I don't doubt that. Never saw the interviews, but in the minds of some the two jobs might be interchangeable. Some of the other lingo lead me to believe it was talking about electrical rather then telephone lines. I guess it's really not that important. It's still one of the greatest songs ever written or recorded.
@@rondevous5685 It is very easy to find on a Google search. I am sure you are right about phone lines not having overloads. I also know that Jimmy Webb doesn't know the profession and probably confused the 2 lineman jobs.
This may be 50 years late, but I was thinking of the high voltage distribution lines, 250KV 3 phase everywhere except Texas, where it's 500KV. The Lineman for the county. The whole County. Observe the power lines throughout a county.
Now we have powerline right-of-ways with crushed rock roads under the towers. Now we may not drive the main road.
Overloads would manifest at substations or where trees fall or on the snow and Ice weigh down the line and it shorts or breaks the line.
At this point I think we should stop and admit it's not perfect, but it's excellent.
... the first time I heard the song "Wichita Lineman" I had to make a long pause ... I thought I was dreaming ... it was stunningly mesmerizing ...
It had been so long. I’d forgotten this contemporary had such an expressive voice.
Just realized there is one more level of "wow" to this song. This guy's job is all about maintaining communication between thousands of people and the storyline gives us his own yearning to communicate his deepest feelings with his own soulmate. Can't believe it's taken this long for me figure this out. Remarkable song. Billy Joel, the great storyteller.
no
the guy works on electrical not telephone lines
Let's google search on that. I'm seeing almost exclusively the sources saying it's telephone line. I see you're passionate about the song. Me too. Instead of hitting 'no' you could have just said hi, I'm nicky, and i like that song as well. @@nickyl9040
Telephone lines don’t overload
@@KelliMcD telephone lines can overload, they can have power surges which include lightening strikes..
Jimmy Webb and Billy Joel. Wow! Billy Joel does some really nice tasteful chord changes. One great composer to another...... Yes Mr. Joel understands and describes the romance and personal touch just perfectly.
Wow. Two incredible music composers that know how to compose a good song. You can't beat that.
Billy is a great artist. Jimmy is a great artist. And they both know the last thing great art needs is to be explained.
Except Billy can't help himself.
I think Billy's sharing his enthusiasm
Two words spring to mind. Musical genius. I love all about Mr Joel.
I admire Jimmy Webb so much, and enjoy Billy Joel's humor with this. Glen Campbell can't be outdone though.
Have you heard the Tom Jones version? It's restrained and passionate, and Jones is a better vocalist. It's beautiful.
@@scarlettina710 I've heard it now, and never want to hear it again. I loved hearing Tom sing She's a lady and a couple of others, but it seemed like he spent more time covering other's songs than singing his own, so my appreciation for his voice had left by the mid 70's. I would have loved it had Billy eventually sung the song as it's written because his voice is so crystal clear, but this belongs to Glen Campbell. That is who Jimmy wrote it for, and while many have covered it, Glen perfected it. If you see this, a few weeks ago on The Voice, a group called "Girl named Tom" which were 2 brothers and a sister did Wichita Lineman and I can still listen to them and get goosebumps. ruclips.net/video/WPUNAY9L_Zs/видео.html I fully expect them to end up in the top 3, possibly the winner because I've never heard harmony as flawless as theirs.
A Girl Named Tom did Wichita Lineman best on the 2021 Season of The Voice
@@valerieharris2395 Their version was similar to what Little Big Town did as a tribute to Glen at the CMA's, and to be perfectly honest, Girl Named Tom was BETTER than LBT!!! We voted for them, and ONLY them every week. I predicted at their audition that they would win. They were SO polished every performance. I already have a bunch of their music on my ipod and I love them so much.
@@survivrs I, too, love GNT. 7 Bridges Road was amazing. Also, when they ended with "Baby, now that I found you" I loved it so much!!
... lirycs-wise... this song is one of (if not) the most flawlessly melody/harmony in the music... OMG it´s sounds like magic.
100%! This composition has haunted me since I first heard it in 1968. It captures a level of feeling in the heart that transcends pretty much any other song that I’ve ever heard.
Complete dissection of one of the best song of the last century. Dedicated to all the people who still uses landline
perfect song by jimmy webb!
Webb actually wrote "Didn't We" while in high school at Colton, California. IN HIGH SCHOOL !!
!
"Billy Joel said, and it was at the Songwriter's Hall of Fame ceremony, that it was a song about an ordinary man thinking extraordinary thoughts. That brought tears to my eyes because he came closer than anyone to getting it." quote from Jimmy Webb:)!
Sometimes genius melodies and haunting timeless songs don't stand up to analysis. They just convey emotion. The project feeling. They embrace the intangible. At least sweet green icing didn't get mentioned in the lineman's lunch box. This song is a work of genius. The envelope of sound is just gorgeous. Over analyse art and you kill it. Just let it be.
the Epster Bingo! Art and music should be enjoyed, not analyzed. It’s purpose is to take us AWAY from the boring, analytical world.
I could imagine this being helpful to a young aspiring songwriter or someone who is in the clutches of painful writers' block. Takes you inside the process a bit. Otherwise you can get paralyzed waiting for some intangible "muse", then convince yourself, " oh I could never write something that good." If you look under the hood a bit, you can see music creation a bit differently?
I’m thinking of Mike Rowe with this. A blue collar loving poet.
I believe it was more about power lines than phone lines, but BJ’s assessment of the song was amazing ! Thank you .. Jimmy, Glen’s rendition is like no other. I will always think of my Dad who has passed, but is NEVER FORGOTTEN 🙏🏻 Thx Dad for playing this song.
It's that Morse code sounding repeated note that confuses us.
Song hits our guts and soul. The reason we live. GOD first. The wife next.
Billy Joel amazing and my jimmy Webb favorite song
I always suspected Billy was a blue collar hero - now I know it to be true
He sure is Stood up for the fishermen too
For those who don't understand poetry, Billy Joel does a great job explaining this song. I saw Billy in concert last year and he sounds better than in this video. If you have the opportunity, do yourself a favor and see him in concert.
Billy was able to get that upper range in his voice back, after he quit smokin'.
Billy Joel's high tenor voice is our American hero. As good as the Beatles.
No it's not.
@@kb9788 No it's not. Do you mean no he is not...haha
Beautiful song. I would have loved to hear its creator, Jimmy Webb speak a few words.
me too
Incredible beauty
Billy Joel is one of America's best songwriters!! I'll include him with Mr. Webb.
I saw Guns N Roses perform this song last night and I loved it. For a Rock and Metal fan I was blown away. I think Jimmy Webb wrote some great songs. Glen Campbell singing them is proof. REM do a great version too. Axl Rose and Michael Stipe are good friends so maybe this is the reason they covered it. Who knows?
I’ve heard of Billy Joel for years, but I guess I’ve never really seen him until now perhaps?! Just been learning about Jimmy Webb, being such a great writer of songs for Glenn Campbell and others! He sounds pretty fabulous and a legend
I had the same feeling about about the souls of ''everyday people'' when I first heard this song...
Good explanation of the lyrics, RIP Glen
This description was almost as brilliant as the song itself. Jimmy Webb took the dreary lives of everyday Americans and made them all heroes, and all with this one song. Wow...
As Vince Gill said, no sings a Jimmy Webb song better than Glen Campbell.
S
But Billy sounds great with it.
I don't think of this as a performance as much as it was an explanation
@@Versul1Typical Billy Joel. He does this in concerts too… he’s an entertainer. I live on Long Island.. used to it. He doesn’t come near Glen Campbell but he’s not trying to.. just putting his spin on it.
I am 75 years old and I just learned to play this song a few months ago. I remember hearing this song, and Galveston while I was in the army..... They always made me lonesome for home. They are still special to me. But, Billy is leaving out a few notes during the chorus that sounds almost like mores code. It's an e,f,e,c right after the Cadd9.
What happened to Julie Andrew's do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do?
He still singing great and smooth.
Billy had good intentions of explaining the song but he missed the mark by thinking it was telephone. I do forgive him. Not everyone understands that Jimmy Webbs words were about the high powered linemen. Every electrician who has heard this song relates to it. Phone line overloads can't sing like the power line can
I did read an interview with JImmy Webb and he said he was inspired by seeing telephone linemen up poles in the middle of nowhere, using a handset plugged into the line to test and wondered who they were talking to. Just a story off the internet though of course, as they all are.
You are correct, though I don't doubt that the inspiration came from the phone guy up the pole. Neither telephone nor cable TV lines carry that much juice (I used to install cable - have gaffed up more than a few poles). Neither phone nor cable make a whine. Power lines do. Also, if he works for the county, it must be for an electric utility. I've never heard of a county-owned phone service. Still, a great song that I think does honor to those who get go out in all kinds of weather, day and night, to maintain and repair those high voltage lines, without which we would all be literally in the dark.
Telephone Lineman. I hear her singing in the wire? Besides Jimmy actually says it's a telephone lineman in an interview.
"And then, as it happened, I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles and there was a man on top, talking on a telephone.
"He was gone very quickly, and I had another 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. It was a splendidly vivid, cinematic image that I lifted out of my deep memory while I was writing this song."
Singing in the wire, maybe the telephone lineman working on some open wire, I climbed many a pole for AT&T during the 44 years I worked there.
It’s nice to see Jim Webb’s Wichita Lineman get some notice. It’s a song that I have loved for over 50 years. Thank you Jim Webb for giving birth to it and thank you Glen Campbell for giving it life. ❤
I've been working on Telecom since the eighties. When I was just a boy I heard this song on the radio knowing nothing about love or telephone lines. Now I'm retired and this beautiful song means a lot to me.
Where did you work? I’m a retired lineman from Long Island
Interesting take on a great song.
I have been searching for this since 2003. Saw this performance and the fleshing out of this song that I had never heard before. Thank you for posting this.
Thanks (four years later) for posting this. I'd go looking for it online every few years; so happy it's finally turned up.
Thank you that was wonderful
Thanks for posting this; remember watching it on tv and have looked online for awhile now for it.
Same here!!
Billy Joel, what a beautiful and soulful interpretation of this American gem. I now respect and appreciate you more than ever, because you clearly aim to get the deep emotional heart of the song and the person in it. And a beautiful rendering too. Thank you sir!
Thank you so very much for posting this as I've been hoping someone would do that for years!! I remember watching this show and being so moved. This is one of my favorite song (and I'm a very eclectic musician) and love Joel's live rendition.
Haunting
This is one of your favorite songs , and you loved this rendition huh ? wow .... just wow
I love everything from ABBA to ZZTop. My taste is very eclectic also. If it's good music, it's good music! My Spotify has a pretty wide type of genres.
Listen to James Taylors cover of this song. It is incredibel!
It's difficult to understand all the negative comments here. He is .... aw forget it. They are nostalgic or biased because of their associations. They are not musicians. Billy is sharing his thoughts and outlining the chords. Why does that offend people? He is unquestionably musical, and explains how the lyrics work for someone who is just discovering it.
The down voters don't like a yankee, a city guy messing with their culture.
It’s a great song of course, but what a beautiful voice Billy Joel has.
Thank you father. Sincerely.
Billy is totally awesome, love the way he explains this , and his cover is brilliant too , come back to the UK Billy when it's safe to do so please
Billy Joel is absolutely fantastic
I really liked Mr Joel's analogies at the end of his commentary, before he played the song.
As in, how anyone can be in that position of having great thoughts.... Thoughts that are as powerful as the best poetry on Earth, as empathetic as Jesus.
I thought Billy conveyed that in that his speech very well.
I also heard a little Long Island Sound in him too.... especially when one of is analogies was about a fishermen :-). Need I say more, that was directly from his hometown, to the locals.
Wow Billy Joel looks really good!! ✌️❤️🌷
An American treasure, talking about another American treasure, who wrote one of the greatest songs ever, for another American treasure
Billy Joel is a phenomenal talent n Jimmy Webb is a genius
Maria Mckees interpretation of Wichita Lineman is beyond beautiful,it is just stunning.
Billy is one of my favorite singers of all time.
Isn't he one of yours, too?
Yes he is.
A great recognizing a great.
This is tear jerking….
Hard to explain what was in the mind of Jimmy when he wrote the lyrics of the his best melodies .
Think of the « cake ice melting down » in Mcarthur park .
When asked about the meaning of that song Jimmy says I don't know.
Jimmy grew up in rural Oklahoma .Son of a preacher man.The imagery is perfect,so is Jimmy.
This song makes water come out of my face and I don't even cry😂
Great song!!!
Greatest song
Problem here is simple; Glen Campbell owned this song ~ and still does.
not only Glen.. many other doin a better work on this song, Jose Feliciano, Ray Charles etc..
Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66 do an excellent version of this song.
Yup... Only GC can do it ... All the rest are pale interpretations...
perhaps you've never heard Jimmy Webb's version (from the album Ten Easy Pieces)... the actual owner of the song...
@@o.b.v.i.u.s BINGO!
I have been told that I am an extraordinary man (naturally poetic, always presenting insight, listening deeply, etc.) but mostly I do ordinary things. I think there are many of us. It's nice to be noticed.
So who notices you?
@@tomlewitt3:27
Jimmy Webb, Billy Joel, ….
Billy Joel fa bene tutti i generi musicali .... Un vero Piano MAN ...
Billy- linemen travel in other states to help restore power. I think Glen what saying he loved women in those other states. it can happen... but line mans job was to restore power..
I really enjoyed this video I just wish the sound was better quality
Two of the best...........
I think Billy was not quite getting all of the song. First of all, the city of Wichita Kansas is not in Wichita County. The county is much more west and more desolate than the city. The song is about a 'Wichita County' lineman. He may work on telephone lines in a pinch, but he is primarily a power grid lineman (searching for overloads) which is very dangerous on your own. Those are some lonely stretches of roads out there and on hot summer days it is sweltering as his company probably can't afford air conditioning in his rig. Every day he goes to work and may see a tractor or two pass by and maybe a car - that's it. The only person he talks to is a dispatcher on the radio. Most of the time a lineman can travel down the road a few miles in each direction to throw breakers up on the poles (using long wooden rods) to isolate the section of a power line he needs to repair. So he is rarely on the radio. He is lonely not only from the job but from what appears to be missing or breaking up with his love. The singing is not necessarily through telephone wires but is metaphor of his memory stimulated from the sounds from the high tension (high voltage) lines ("hear you through the whine") as they do in hot/humid weather. It's an endless job and he often contemplates future work based on the weather - looking for a long break if it rains for a few days. The stucato notes in the music are indeed mimicking Morse code over the wires because he may have to contact dispatch through maintence wires using that code when out of radio range and there are no repeaters on the lines for voice phone calls. At the end of the song the stucato notes are repeated and on Glen Cambell's studio version of the song they fade into echoing signals that keep going out over and over, bouncing here and there - like sending a desperate message all around in hope that his love will reply - which doesn't happen any more. It's about being isolated, over worked, uncomfortable, frustrated, lonely, and missing his love. It's my favorite Jimmy Webb song. It's sort of like the end of Sting's (in "The Police" band) song "Message In a Bottle" where he keeps singing, "Sending out an S.O.S." over and over, as if to never get a reply. Yes, he talks about a hundred billion bottles washing up on the shore (as the whole world is castaway), but songs don't have tell a story in sequence, especially at the end where they fade off repeating a theme as if it goes on forever.
My favorite
I wish he did the song at the end properly.
Billy is a masterful artist, brilliant musician with a great mind!
This video is amazing. I just wish the sound was clearer. If anyone can help to rectify this please do. Billy Joel's interpretation and performance is amazing but sound quality is really bad. Please help!!!,
Knew Billy, when He was in a band called 'The Hassles & played a Hammond Organ. Cover band from L.I. We, both came up from that era . Many great Musicians and times..
❤❤❤
And I need you more than want you....have you heard Little Big Town's version? It's the best since Glen Campbell's version!
My father was a transmission lineman 💜
In tornado, tempests, and trials, the linemen are there, first responders in snow and rain, flood and road disasters. In the middle of the upheavals, there to bring connection to Americans in need…..
"I am a lineman for the county . . . but I'm also the Piano Mannnnn."
Awesome!!! :)
..telephone poles?…nope Billy, they’s power poles…fyi..telephone repair guys don’t search for dem overloads..my oh my you needs to git out more