If it snows ...

In my opinion, this blog has been its most successful (and certainly most enjoyable to write) when I've started at a specific song, then been able to examine it at length, to venture into pop culture in general, throw in a bit of autobiographical detail, and come back to where I started. That feels like proper writing, and what a music blog should be all about.

I also note that I've made lists of countless things and written about countless things, but have never been so bold to focus, as such, on "lyrics". I've never told you my favourite lyrics. I don't really think I have favourite lyrics, as such, and I'm very cautious about ever divorcing the words from the song. The song is the whole thing, it's always unwise to remove the words from their context. We all know that the person who starts reciting you their favourite lyrics like they're the Book of Revelation is a person to avoid most strenuously.

But ... of course ... I can't avoid being the twat forever.

All I'm going to do, perhaps as an ongoing strand, perhaps not, is give a line I love from a song I love and see if I can write around it, think about it and see what it is I love so much.

I'll avoid tapping into the spirit of my student self and going too deep into literary criticism, but I'm sure words like assonance will pop up every now and then.

"And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain"

This is a good place to start, eh?

This line, as you probably know, comes from the second verse of 'Wichita Lineman', written by Jimmy Webb, sung by Glen Campbell. I fucking love this line. I love the way it sounds, for starters, the easy, oddly gentle alliteration, perhaps the hissing of the wire, though it doesn't have to be, the long, relatively complex unit of sense, sung just at the edge of where Campbell's glorious voice still sounds comfortable. He sings it like he means it, it sits in the verse like it's the most important thing he can think of.

But it's not, of course.

The line that follows this one, almost as a sigh, is the most famous line in the song - "And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time".
This enormously romantic and beautiful line is oft-repeated and quoted. But would it be such a wonderful, beautiful line, if, as might make sense, it had been preceded by something like ...

"Baby, I'm trying to compare how much I need you and how much I want you,
and also how long I'm going to want you for ..."

Thanks, I came up with that myself.

No, it's the juxtaposition that makes the magic.
"If it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain," the stoical, hard-working man thought to himself, focusing, for a time, on the concerns of his job. But his loneliness and longing inevitably burst through the veneer his mind had constructed. "And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time".

There are so few lines in this song, which tell so much, just the perfectly concise biography of an American man, his life, his character and all his concerns.

Wichita Lineman

There are other things I love about this song - the fact it's a country song at heart, but also a chamber-pop song - it's really one of the cornerstones of all-American music.

I haven't much else to say about it, certainly nothing autobiographical, it doesn't take me back to my days as a binman in Winchester. But it's a glorious moment in a glorious song, and if I ever have the opportunity to use the phrase "If it snows, that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain" appropriately, by golly, I will!