Notes from Robyn on Patreon in 2021

Jimmy Webb has written some great songs but ‘Wichita Lineman’ is beyond superb. The melody curls like a serpent: around it grows the story of a telephone line repairman, presumably sitting atop a telegraph pole in the wilderness of Kansas. I picture him dressed in funky denims with a Marlboro cigarette between his teeth as he eavesdrops on a random voice singing to an unknown ear at an unspecified number. Is she singing opera, or country music...or maybe folk rock? It’s the mid-1960s in a Southern State so he’s likely a respectful, yes-ma’am type, probably keeping the sun off his head with a cowboy hat. We don’t know if the person to whom he’s singing can hear him, but we *can* hear all the longing in the universe coming down those wires and out of the lineman’s devoted mouth. And the tune: it starts out widescreen, then tugs at your heart like a week-old kitten. Bob Dylan has apparently called ‘Wichita Lineman’ the greatest song ever written, and, ‘Visions of Johanna’ aside, I agree with him.