#9 - "One Hundred Miles Away From Home"
"Not a shirt on my back / Not a penny to my name"
#8 - Glen & Roger Miller Lament Together on "King of the Road"
"I ain't got no cigarettes!"
#7 - "Freeborn Man" with Glen & Tommy Hunter
Ballad of the nomadic man without home or work:
"I’m a freeborn man
My home is on my back"
#6 - "Nine Pound Hammer"
For the coal miners and all hardworking laborers
#5 - "Guitar Man" with Glen & Jerry Reed
"Nobody wanted to hire a guitar man"
#4 - "Folk Singer"
"As I walk these narrow streets where a million passing feet throd before me
With my guitar in my hand suddenly I realize nobody knows me
Where yesterday the multitudes screamed and cried my name out for a song
Now the streets are empty and the crowds they've all gone home"
(From Glen's 'Try A Little Kindness' album)
#3 - "It Goes Like It Goes" (rare)
"Bless the child of the workin' man
She knows too soon who she is
And bless the hands of a workin' man
He knows his soul is his"
#2 - "Rhinestone Cowboy"
"I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain"
#1 - THE TOP WORKING MAN'S SONG - "Wichita Lineman"
Jimmy Webb’s classic
“I am a lineman for the county
And I drive the main road
Searchin' in the sun for another overload"
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BONUS FEATURE
Check out this archived interview with Jimmy Webb for The Electrical Worker Online, December 2014:
Electrical Worker Online: You have said that no one should assume that one's job has anything to do with how deeply they understand or feel about their surroundings and life. Wichita Lineman exhibits that respect for average workers. Where did that respect come from?
Jimmy Webb: I came from a middle-class home. My father served in the Marines in the South Pacific during WWII before he became a Baptist minister. We worked on my grandfather's farm in Oklahoma. We picked cotton and threw hay up on a trailer. I was plowing wheat the day I heard Glen Campbell's recording of "Turn Around Look at Me" and found a sound I could identify with, an American life and a blue-collar voice.
You can access the full interview here
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