Webb wrote the first verse and part of a second verse of “Wichita Lineman” and sent a rough demo tape of it over to the studio to see if Campbell and his producer Al DeLory liked it. Jimmy planned to finish the second verse and write a third verse and a chorus if they liked what he had done with the song so far. Otherwise, Webb felt there was no need to spend any more time on it. When he never heard back from Campbell, Webb assumed he just wasn’t interested in the song. When he saw Glen several weeks later, Jimmy asked him, “so whatever happened with that ‘Wichita Lineman’ thing? I guess you didn’t like it, huh?”
“Didn’t like it?” Glen retorted. “We recorded it.”
“But it wasn’t finished,” Webb protested, to which Campbell laughed and replied, “Well, it is now.”
Due to the short lyrical content, Campbell and DeLory simply added a long guitar solo that mimicked the melody of the verse to make the song long enough. DeLory then added a beautiful string arrangement for the introduction and fade-out, making it a huge crossover smash (reaching #1 country, #1 adult contemporary and #3 pop) becoming Campbell’s second-biggest career hit (next to “Rhinestone Cowboy’). Not too shabby for an unfinished song.
Jimmy Webb was Glen Campbell’s all-time favorite songwriter, creating what Glen determined as the best melodies and chord progressions of any he had ever heard. As I mentioned earlier, Campbell charted with nine Webb songs. In addition to the two mentioned in this story, Glen had good-sized hits with “Where’s The Playground Susie” (#28, 1969), “Honey Come Back” (#2, 1970), “It’s A Sin When You Love Somebody” (#16, 1975), “Still Within The Sound Of My Voice” (#5, 1988) and Campbell’s third-biggest career record, 1969’s “Galveston,” another of Jimmy’s superb “town songs” that topped Billboard’s country chart for three weeks and peaked at #4 on the Hot 100. Additionally, in 1979, Campbell was the first to record Webb’s “Highwayman” a full six years before the song slammed into #1 for Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson.
In 2019, Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” was inducted into the Library Of Congress’ “National Recording Registry,” the highest honor a recording can achieve.