"Wichita Lineman" is a song written by the American songwriter

Jimmy Webb Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling songs, including " Up, Up and Away", " By the Time I Get to Phoenix", " MacArthur Park", " Wichita Lineman", " Wo ...

in 1968. It was first recorded by the American

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

artist

Glen Campbell Glen Travis Campbell (April 22, 1936 – August 8, 2017) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor and television host. He was best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting '' The Glen Campbell Good ...

with backing from members of The Wrecking Crew and was widely covered by other artists. Campbell's version, which appeared on his 1968 album of the same name, reached number 3 on the US

pop chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

, remaining in the Top 100 for 15 weeks. In addition, the song topped the American country music chart for two weeks and the

adult contemporary chart The Adult Contemporary chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary radio stations in the United States. The chart is compiled based on airplay data submitted to ''Billboard'' by stat ...

for six weeks. It was

certified gold Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

by the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/ ...

in January 1969. The song reached number 7 in the United Kingdom. In Canada, the single topped both the '' RPM'' national and country singles charts. the song had also sold 357,000 downloads in the digital era in the United States. In 2021, ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' magazine's list of the "

500 Greatest Songs of All Time "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" is a recurring survey compiled by the American magazine '' Rolling Stone''. It is based on weighted votes from selected musicians, critics, and industry figures. The first list was published in December 2004 i ...

" ranked "Wichita Lineman" at number 206. It has been referred to as "the first

existential Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

country song". British

music journalist Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

Stuart Maconie Stuart Maconie (born 13 August 1961) is an English radio DJ and television presenter, writer, journalist, and critic working in the field of pop music and popular culture. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music where, alongside Mark ...

called it "the greatest pop song ever composed"; and the BBC referred to it as "one of those rare songs that seems somehow to exist in a world of its own – not just timeless but ultimately outside of modern music". "Wichita Lineman" was featured in series 12 of

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's ...

's ''Soul Music'', a documentary series featuring stories behind pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact. In 2017, '' Paste'' ranked the song number two on their list of the 12 greatest Glen Campbell songs, and ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

'' ranked the song number three on their list of the 10 greatest Glen Campbell songs. The single was inducted into the

Grammy Hall of Fame The Grammy Hall of Fame is a hall of fame to honor musical recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance. Inductees are selected annually by a special member committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of ...

in 2000. In 2019, the song was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

for preservation in the

National Recording Registry The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservat ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Background and content

Jimmy Webb stated in an interview for the BBC Radio 4 ''

Mastertapes ''Mastertapes'' is a BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, dra ...

'' programme that the song was written in response to a phone call from Campbell for a "place" or "geographical" song to follow up " By the Time I Get to Phoenix". Webb's inspiration for the lyric came while driving through

Washita County Washita County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 11,629. Its county seat is New Cordell. The county seat was formerly located in Cloud Chief. The county was created in 1891. Histor ...

in rural southwestern

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

. At that time, many telephone companies were county-owned utilities, and their linemen were county employees. Heading westward on a straight road into the setting sun, Webb drove past a seemingly endless line of telephone poles, each looking exactly the same as the last. Then he noticed, in the distance, the silhouette of a solitary lineman atop a pole. He described it as "the picture of loneliness". Webb then "put himself atop that pole and put that phone in his hand" as he considered what the lineman was saying into the receiver.

It was a splendidly vivid, cinematic image that I lifted out of my deep memory while I was writing this song. I thought, I wonder if I can write something about that? A
blue collar A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and power ...
,
everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...
guy we all see everywhere – working on the railroad or working on the telephone wires or digging holes in the street. I just tried to take an ordinary guy and open him up and say, 'Look there's this great soul, and there's this great aching, and this great loneliness inside this person and we're all like that. We all have this capacity for these huge feelings'.

Webb delivered a demo that he regarded and labelled as an incomplete version of the song, warning the producer and arranger

Al De Lory Alfred V. De Lory (January 31, 1930 – February 5, 2012) was an American record producer, arranger, conductor and session musician. He was the producer and arranger of a series of worldwide hits by Glen Campbell in the 1960s, including John Har ...

that he had not completed a third verse or a middle eight. "When I heard it I cried," Campbell said, "... because I was homesick." De Lory similarly found inspiration in the opening line. His uncle had been a lineman in

Kern County, California Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county ...

: "I could visualise my uncle up a pole in the middle of nowhere. I loved the song right away." Webb's concerns over his song's shortcomings were addressed in the recording studio by adding a

tremolo In music, ''tremolo'' (), or ''tremolando'' (), is a trembling effect. There are two types of tremolo. The first is a rapid reiteration: * Of a single note, particularly used on bowed string instruments, by rapidly moving the bow back and f ...

-infused Dano bass melodic interlude performed by Campbell, who had made his reputation in the music industry as a session guitarist with the group of uncredited Los Angeles backing musicians known today as " The Wrecking Crew", many of whom played on the recording. One of them, bassist

Carol Kaye Carol Kaye (née Smith, born March 24, 1935) is an American musician. She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years. Kaye began pla ...

, contributed the descending six-note intro. A second six-note bass lick improvised by Kaye was copied for strings by De Lory and inserted between the two rhyming

couplets A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

of each verse. All the orchestral

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orche ...

s are by De Lory, who evokes the phrase "singing in the wire" using high-pitched, ethereal violins to emulate the sonic vibrations commonly induced by wind blowing across small wires and conductors, making them whistle or whine like an

aeolian harp An Aeolian harp (also wind harp) is a musical instrument that is played by the wind. Named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind, the traditional Aeolian harp is essentially a wooden box including a sounding board, with strings stretched ...

. Similarly, he employs a repeating, monotonic '

Morse code Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one ...

' keyboard/flute motif to mimic the electronic sounds a lineman might hear through a telephone

earpiece In-ear monitors (IEMs) are devices used by musicians, audio engineers and audiophiles to listen to music or to hear a personal mix of vocals and stage instrumentation for live performance or recording studio mixing. They are also used by tele ...

attached to a long stretch of 'raw' telephone or telegraph line; that is, without typical line equalization and

filtering Filter, filtering or filters may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming * Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream * Filter (video), a software component tha ...

("I can hear you through the whine"). Webb was surprised to hear that Campbell had recorded the song: "A couple of weeks later I ran into ampbellsomewhere, and I said, 'I guess you guys didn't like the song'. 'Oh, we cut that,' he said. 'It wasn't done! I was just humming the last bit!'. 'Well, it's done now!'" After listening to the test acetates of the studio recording that Campbell had with him, Webb contributed the

overdub Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...

of evocative, reverberating electronic notes and open chords heard in the intro and fadeout, respectively, of the finished track, played on his Gulbransen electric organ.

Structure

The song contains two verses, each divided into two parts. The first part is in the key of F major, while the second is written in D major. D represents the relative minor position to F, so a D minor (as opposed to major) section would be expected. The fact that it is nevertheless set in D major is argued to contribute to the unique and appealing character of the song. The lyrics follow the key dichotomy, with the first part of each verse (F major) handling issues related to a lineman's job (e.g. "searchin' in the sun for another overload", "if it snows, that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain"), whereas the second part (D major) dwells on the lineman's romantic thoughts. Set off against the F major of the first part, the D major of the second part sounds distinctively mellow, which is consistent with its content. Webb's melancholic, jazz-tinged chord progressions, laced with minor sevenths and suspended fourths, reinforce the song's indeterminate nature by

modulating In music, modulation is the change from one tonality ( tonic, or tonal center) to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature (a key change). Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, a ...

from F major to D major and back without ever fully resolving:

The song never does get ‘home’ again to the tonic – not in either verse, nor in the fadeout. This gorgeous musical setting suggests subliminally what the lyric suggests poetically: the lonely journeyman who remains suspended atop that telephone pole against that desolate prairie landscape, yearning for home.

Personnel

Charts and sales

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Cover versions

Many adult " middle of the road" (MOR) artists recorded the song, including

Tom Jones Tom Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer *Tom Jones (writer) (1928–2023), American librettist and lyricist *''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', a novel by Henry Fielding published in 1 ...

Johnny Mathis John Royce Mathis (born September 30, 1935) is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standard music, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum s ...

Robert Goulet Robert Gérard Goulet (November 26, 1933 October 30, 2007) was an American and Canadian singer and actor of French-Canadian ancestry. Goulet was born and raised in Lawrence, Massachusetts until age 13, and then spent his formative years in Canad ...

Andy Williams Howard Andrew Williams (December 3, 1927 – September 25, 2012) was an American singer. He recorded 43 albums in his career, of which 15 have been gold certified and three platinum certified. He was also nominated for six Grammy Awards. He hos ...

Bobby Goldsboro Robert Charles Goldsboro (born January 18, 1941) is an American pop and country singer and songwriter. He had a string of pop and country hits in the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature No. 1 hit "Honey", which sold over 1 million copies in ...

and Engelbert Humperdinck, most of them shortly after the original version was a hit. There were also many instrumental versions, including one by

José Feliciano José Montserrate Feliciano García (born September 10, 1945) () is a Puerto Rican musician, singer and composer. He recorded many international hits, including his rendition of the Doors' "Light My Fire" and his self-penned Christmas song " F ...

. In 2001 the instrumental band

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included a cover version on their studio album of the same name, featuring lap steel guitarist Bill Elm. Guitarist Johnny A included an instrumental version on his 1999 release ''Sometime Tuesday Morning''. The song has also been covered by artists such as

Ray Charles Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...

The Dells The Dells were an American R&B vocal group. Formed in high school in 1953 by founding members Marvin Junior, Verne Allison, Johnny Funches, Chuck Barksdale, and Michael and Lucius McGill, under the name the El-Rays. They released their first r ...

Billy Joel William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his album and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since th ...

, Freedy Johnston, O.C. Smith,

Willie Hutch William McKinley Hutchison (December 6, 1944 – September 19, 2005), better known as Willie Hutch, was an American singer, songwriter as well as a record producer and recording artist for the Motown record label during the 1970s and 1980s. Biog ...

, The Meters,

These Animal Men These Animal Men were an English band active in the 1990s, as part of the New Wave of New Wave, and released two albums before splitting up in 1998. History These Animal Men These Animal Men formed in Brighton in 1989, signing to Hut Records ...

Maria McKee Maria Luisa McKee (born August 17, 1964) is an American singer-songwriter. She is best known for her work with Lone Justice, her 1990 song "Show Me Heaven", and her song "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" from the film ''Pulp Fiction''. ...

, Reg Presley of

The Troggs The Troggs (originally called the Troglodytes) are an English garage rock band formed in Andover, Hampshire in May 1964. Their most famous songs include the US chart-topper " Wild Thing", " With a Girl Like You" and " Love Is All Around", all ...

, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66,

Kool & The Gang Kool & the Gang is an American R&B/soul/funk band formed in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1964 by brothers Robert "Kool" Bell and Ronald Bell, with Dennis "Dee Tee" Thomas, Robert "Spike" Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown, and Ricky West. ...

, Shawn Lee, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles,

James Taylor James Vernon Taylor (born March 12, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A six-time Grammy Award winner, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. He is one of the List of best-selling music artists, best-sell ...

, R.E.M.,

The Clouds ''The Clouds'' ( grc, Νεφέλαι ''Nephelai'') is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423BC and was not ...

, Earl Van Dyke, Zucchero Fornaciari, King Harvest,

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his c ...

Dwight Yoakam Dwight David Yoakam (born October 23, 1956) is an American singer-songwriter, actor, and film director. He first achieved mainstream attention in 1986 with the release of his debut album ''Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc.''. Yoakam had considerabl ...

, Wayne Newton,

Tony Joe White Tony Joe White (July 23, 1943 – October 24, 2018), nicknamed the Swamp Fox, was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his 1969 hit " Polk Salad Annie" and for " Rainy Night in Georgia", which he wrote but which was first ...

Stoney LaRue Stoney LaRue (born Stoney Larue Phillips in 1977) is an American Texas Country/ Red Dirt artist. Life and career Born in Taft, Texas, LaRue was raised in Yanush/Buffalo Valley, Oklahoma where he still visits regularly and began playing country ...

, B.E.F., Urge Overkill,

Black Pumas Black Pumas is an American psychedelic soul band based in Austin, Texas, led by singer/songwriter Eric Burton and guitarist/ producer Adrian Quesada. The group received its first Grammy Award nomination in 2020 for Best New Artist. History In 201 ...

Colin Hay Colin James Hay (born 29 June 1953) is a Scottish-Australian musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and the sole continuous member of the band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Hay's music ha ...

and The Nottingham Youth Jazz Orchestra (Combo). Jazz pianist

Alan Pasqua Alan Pasqua (born June 28, 1952) is an American rock and jazz pianist. He studied at Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music. His album ''Standards'' with drummer Peter Erskine was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2008. As a ...

developed an arrangement of the song for jazz trio that appears on his album ''My New Old Friend'' and

Peter Erskine Peter Erskine (born June 5, 1954) is an American jazz drummer who was a member of the jazz fusion groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead. Early life and education Erskine was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, U.S. He began playing the dru ...

's album ''The Interlochen Concert''. Jazz pianist John Harkins played an up-tempo rendition of the song on his 2015 album ''Cognition.'' Jazz pianist

Laurence Hobgood Laurence Hobgood (born 1959) is a contemporary jazz piano virtuoso, composer, arranger, Record producer, producer, lyricist and educator. Perhaps best known for his twenty-year collaboration with vocalist Kurt Elling, Hobgood has had a varied and ...

recorded a version of the song combining a contemporary jazz trio with a string quartet. A soul-jazz version was also performed by Young-Holt Unlimited. A stripped-down version of the song also appears on Villagers' 2016 album ''Where Have You Been All My Life'' with a simple piano accompaniment. Other covers of the song include that of

Wade Hayes Tony Wade Hayes (born April 20, 1969) is an American country music artist. Signed to Columbia Records in 1994, he made his debut that year with his gold-certified album '' Old Enough to Know Better''. Its title track, which served as his debut s ...

, who released a version in August 1997 that peaked at number 55 on the US country music charts. It was to have been included on an album entitled ''Tore Up from the Floor Up'', but due to its poor chart performance, the album was delayed. That album was finally released in 1998 as '' When the Wrong One Loves You Right'', with the "Wichita Lineman" cover excluded. In 2016, the country-pop band

Restless Heart Restless Heart is an American country music band established in 1984. The band's members are Larry Stewart (lead vocals), John Dittrich (drums, vocals), Paul Gregg (bass guitar, vocals), Dave Innis (piano, keyboards, guitar, vocals), and Greg J ...

also recorded a cover of the song.

Guns N' Roses Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1985. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band comprised vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff ...

covered the song live during their " Not in This Life Time" world tour. The first live performance of the song was on August 30, 2017, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ''

'' magazine described it as "their most unexpected cover of the tour". The Brian Setzer Orchestra covered the song live during their Christmas Rocks! 2017 tour and they perform the song on the ''Christmas Rocks! Live'' Blu-ray DVD that was released on November 9, 2018. After Campbell's death, Webb sang the song with

Little Big Town Little Big Town is an American country music vocal group from Homewood, Alabama. Founded in 1998, the group has comprised the same four members since its founding: Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman (née Roads), Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbr ...

as a tribute during the 51st Annual Country Music Association Awards on November 8, 2017.

Fred Hersch Fred Hersch (born October 21, 1955) is an American jazz pianist, educator and HIV/AIDS activist. He was the first person to play weeklong engagements as a solo pianist at the Village Vanguard in New York City. He has recorded more than 70 of his ...

performed a cover of the song at the

Village Vanguard The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jazz ...

on July 23, 2019. Former

Men at Work Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1978 and best known for breakthrough hits such as " Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", " Be Good Johnny", " Overkill", and " It's a Mistake". Its founding member and frontman is C ...

frontman

recorded and released a version of this song on his 2021 cover album ''I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself''. In other languages Lyrics that are loose translations of, or inspired by, Webb's song have been written in at least two other languages: German and Finnish. A German language version written by

Thomas Fritsch Thomas Fritsch (16 January 1944 – 21 April 2021) was a German film, television and dubbing actor. He was regarded as the "Sonnyboy" in the German cinema of the 1960s, and became one of the best-known actors by his presence in television serie ...

, "Der Draht in der Sonne" (English "The Wire In the Sun"), has also been covered by Katja Ebstein.

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

singer

Topi Sorsakoski Pekka Erkki Juhani Tammilehto (27 October 1952 – 13 August 2011), better known by his stage name Topi Sorsakoski, was a Finnish singer. His father was Finnish tango singer Yrjö Johannes "Tapio" Tammilehto. Career Sorsakoski started his care ...

recorded a

version of the song on his album '' Yksinäisyys osa 2'' in 1995.

In popular culture

The song was used in the opening and closing scenes of the ''

Ozark The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant porti ...

'' season 2 episode, "Badger", to emphasize the setting and tone of the beginning and end of Darlene and Jacob Snell's romance.

Ron Swanson Ronald Ulysses Swanson is a fictional character portrayed by Nick Offerman from the situation comedy television series ''Parks and Recreation'' on NBC, created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. In the series, Ron is the director of the Parks ...

(

Nick Offerman Nicholas David Offerman (born June 26, 1970) is an American actor, writer, comedian, producer, and carpenter. He is best known for his role as Ron Swanson in the NBC sitcom '' Parks and Recreation'', for which he received the Television Criti ...

) can be heard briefly singing the song in the season four episode of ''

Parks and Recreation ''Parks and Recreation'' (also known as ''Parks and Rec'') is an American political satire mockumentary sitcom television series created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur. The series aired on NBC from April 9, 2009, to February 24, 2015, for 125 ...

'', " The Debate".

Homer Simpson Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the American animated sitcom ''The Simpsons''. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared, along with the rest of his family, in '' The Tracey Ullman Show'' short ...

sings the song while mimicking hold music in ''

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'' 15th-season episode "

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referenced the song in the title "Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard", on their 1990

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'' Chill Out''.

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paid homage to the song on their album ''

Picaresque The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

'' in the song "The Engine Driver". In the ''

Newsradio ''NewsRadio'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from March 21, 1995 to May 4, 1999, focusing on the work lives of the staff of a New York City AM news radio station. It had an ensemble cast featuring Dave Foley, Steph ...

'' Season 2 episode "In Through the Out Door", Matthew (

Andy Dick Andrew Roane Dick (born Andrew Thomlinson; December 21, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, musician, and television and film producer. Known professionally as a comic, his first regular television role was on the short-lived but influential ...

) bets Joe (

Joe Rogan Joseph James Rogan (born August 11, 1967) is an American UFC color commentator, podcaster, comedian, actor, and former television presenter. He hosts '' The Joe Rogan Experience'', a podcast in which he discusses current events, comedy, pol ...

) that the next song on the radio will be a good one. When they flip the radio on, "Wichita Lineman" is playing. Matthew admits to losing the bet, while from the next room Dave ( Dave Foley) wistfully remarks that he loves this song. The track's fadeout was voiced over for many years by longtime English DJ Steve Wright to close his

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

shows.

Notes

References

External links

''Rolling Stone'' 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: Wichita Lineman

Licensed lyrics of this song
at

SongMeanings SongMeanings is a music website that encourages users to discuss and comment on the underlying meanings and messages of individual songs. As of May 2015, the website contains over 110,000 artists, 1,000,000 lyrics, 14,000 albums, and 530,000 memb ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wichita Lineman 1968 singles Songs written by Jimmy Webb Glen Campbell songs Wade Hayes songs Andy Williams songs Tony Joe White songs Music videos directed by Steven Goldmann RPM Top Singles number-one singles Capitol Records singles Songs about Kansas Country ballads Pop ballads Songs about cities in the United States Songs about loneliness Songs about telephones 1968 songs United States National Recording Registry recordings Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients

Calls Call or Calls may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Call, a type of betting in poker * Call, in the game of contract bridge, a bid, pass, double, or redouble in the bidding stage Music and dance * Call (band), from Lahore, Pak ...