"Wichita Lineman": sucks or love it?

Love it. Unironically. Webb's best song, classic production and performance. The very zenith of late sixties / early seventies non-rock pop.

I once described it as having the existential angst of a housewife in curlers, smoking a Pall Mall and staring fretfully out the back window on the dirt backyard of her unfinished subdivision. There might have been something about her wearing a canary yellow sleeveless knit top too, I think.

That's as far as I've gotten. They're pretty obvious.

Ah, you missed two of the ones I referenced up thread: "After the Flood" - Lone Justice; "3 Feet High and Rising" - Johnny Cash (also sampled by De La Soul).

Webb's best song, classic production and performance.

Maybe his best song, but I've always been partial to "Galveston." That song, to me, is what I think AM rock/pop radio sounds like. Only on an AM station could that bass line sound so ghostly.

And it's a war protest song that was #1 on the country charts at the high-water mark of the protest movement.

"3 Feet High and Rising"

Aaah. Should have had that one.

The sound of a distant AM station coming in late at night and right on the edge of reception is just amazing. It is ghostly. I remember it so clearly. I even remember listening to station like this on the old tube radio my father listened to. I believe they still have that radio in San Diego, I need to get it from them.

It's amazing how far AM broadcasts will travel when the conditions are just right.

LOVE Witchita Lineman. Pretty and intimate and wistful as hell, all at the same time.

Wichita Lineman is totally one of those songs that sounds best on AM radio. It also reminds me of a Joan Didion essay where she was having a nervous breakdown (as she often is in her early essays) and that song was deepening her sense of dread.

My TV list:

Twin Peaks
X-Files 1-5
Buffy 2-3 (maybe 4)
Angel 2-3
Sports Night
Twitch City

I have both REM and Cassandra Wilson covers of "Wichita Lineman." Put me down in the "love" category.

Joe, that's one of my favorite episodes. I have it saved on my TiVo from a rerun last year since it's not on the DVDs that have come out yet. "It was just juvie!"

I've got Homer singing "Wichita Lineman" as my answering machine message.

The Wichita Lineman question was related to a Newsradio music bit. But I am charmed that so many people gave their opinion.

ETA:

Matthew:  OK, I bet you that the next song that 
 WRMH plays is a...really good song.  
Joe.  I bet it sucks! Double or nothing. 
Radio:  "I am a lineman for the county..."
Matthew:  Oh, yeah.  [Sways and begins to sing] 
And I drive the main rooad...
[continues dancing]
[Joe gives him a look]
[Matthew deflates]
Matthew:  All right.  You win.  
It sucks.  


Switch to Dave's office.


Dave is wistful. 
Dave:  I love that song.