Wires, Spires, and The Wichita Lineman
One of my favourite views of Cavan Town is from the top of St Felim’s boys school looking up Farnham Street. It offers a unique picture, as from that vantage point you see all the spires that populate this most multi-denominational and reverential of streets. And what’s more, the ever changing canvas of sky lends the scene an evolving shade and mood.
Over last weekend as Cavan continued its relentless election-count; I was struck by a brilliant pink sky and scurried up to snap the spires against the magnificent magenta backdrop. And wanting to keep my socials a politics-free-zone, I posted the picture to X with the hashtag #Cavan and the words: ‘Wires and Spires.’ Not long afterwards, a lovely lady called Olive commented, ‘Shades of that wonderful song: The Wichita Lineman.’ A song I’d never heard of.
That evening I googled ‘The Wichita Lineman’ and was taken back to the soulful country sound of Glen Campbell as he sang, “I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road. Searching in the sun for another overload; I hear you singing in the wire, I can hear you through the whine…” And by the songs’ end, I was surprised to find myself feeling tearful.
The melancholy in the seventies folk/country sound always gives me the feels. But this time my poignancy came from the fact that, as Cavan continued the longest election count in the country, one that came down to the wire; a picture of wires and spires on Farnham Street brought Olive and I over the Atlantic to the relentless highways of Wichita Kansas, to meet a man doing his job as he yearned for someone or something. It made me realise that Cavan is every place, everywhere.
Everywhere last weekend, the media was in sports-halls across the country. In which we watched triumphant electees being thrust aloft by celebratory colleagues and family; while the despondent drifted away. The sight of these people showed me wherever or whoever we are, we’ve all got an element of The Wichita Lineman in us. We’re all dealing with disappointment, mourning losses, and longing to hear the reassuring sound or sign of a passed loved one, somewhere on our life’s-line.
Our feelings are universal, despite the fact that ‘feelings’ have become somewhat politicised of late; a sign of political weakness in some factions. Yet looking at the people from all sides of the political sphere in sports hall’s last week, you saw the spectrum of ‘feelings’ on their faces; the most stoic of politicians can’t hide them.
The genesis of Wichita Lineman was Campbell calling the writer Jimmy Webb to ask if he could write a ‘place’ based song for him. Within a few hours of the call, Webb had delivered a demo with the proviso it was, “Unfinished…” Campbell’s immediate response was, “When I heard it, I cried…” That vindicated my own emotional response to hearing the song for the first time.
Listening to the song further, I heard a lyric in it that says something I once felt, but at the time didn’t have the words to articulate. Webb wrote, and Campbell sang, “I need you more than I want you; and I want you for all time…” Once upon a time I felt like that for someone; and I was so frightened of those feelings that I ran away from Ireland to escape them. In London, I had relationships, none of which I wanted, and I felt secure with that (there’s a book there, one that would curl the straightest of hair).
Expressing our feelings is important. And trust me, as someone who suppressed them for far too long, I know. I once worked with a man who believed showing our feelings was the greatest of personal and professional weaknesses. One afternoon when we were all about to enter an important meeting, he turned to a colleague and said, “You were really nervous in the last meeting, don’t mess this one up.” Needless to say my colleague melted with nerves. Our nerves don’t mess things up, they can make us; for when we overcome them – we soar.
To finish, back to the song – while strolling along Farnham Street this festive season, take a look at the wires and spires and remember, “The Wichita Lineman, is still on the line.”
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