Wichita Lineman

Jimmy Webb wrote it after Campbell asked for a follow-up to "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", the afternoon he phoned asking for a song about a town in American Songwriter's account; it was the first song Webb wrote expressly for another artist. Webb saw a lineman on a pole with a small telephone hooked into the wires while driving the Oklahoma panhandle near the Kansas border, in a shimmering mirage of poles; he could not tell whether the man was talking or listening, and called the lineman an image of self-reliance. His demo lacked a third verse and a bridge, which Campbell and De Lory filled with the guitar and bass solo; Campbell said, in one account, well it is now. It has two verses of two couplets and no chorus, and is nominally in F but the tonic chord appears only in the intro.

Al De Lory produced and arranged. Basic tracks were cut on May 27, 1968, Webb's organ was added in mid-June and the orchestra on August 14, at Capitol in Hollywood. Campbell played acoustic guitar and a Danelectro six-string bass belonging to Carol Kaye, whose Fender Precision bass has the descending intro and a six-note lick later adapted for strings; Al Casey plays acoustic guitar, Jim Gordon drums, Jim Horn flute, and Webb a Gulbransen organ. The tremolo sound that seems like a sitar is the Danelectro, as the article does not mention a sitar. The single came out the week of October 26, 1968 on Capitol 2302 with "Fate of Man" on the B-side, 3:05 against 3:08 on the album.

It reached 3 on the Hot 100 over 15 weeks, number 1 on the country chart for two weeks and on adult contemporary for six, and 7 in the UK. It went Gold, entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000, the Library of Congress registry in 2019 or 2020 depending on the source, and Rolling Stone ranked it 206 among the 500 greatest songs in 2021. Wikipedia reports that Bob Dylan called it the greatest song ever written, a claim we could not check at the source. Setlist.fm lists it as his most played song, 101 times in 1,385 setlists. Covers include Johnny A., Jose Feliciano, O.C. Smith, the Meters, the Miracles, Kool and the Gang, Black Pumas, Cassandra Wilson, Wade Hayes (55 on the country chart in 1997), Restless Heart and Colin Hay; Dylan Jones wrote a book about it, The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World's Greatest Unfinished Song.