Mono e Mono

Rusty Dime

Cowboy of the Apocalypse

69 Martin

Misery, Trouble & Heartache

Pretty girls were made for a boy's love. Little Maggie was made for mine

Little Maggie (What’s Under the Overcoat)

a whistle brings the cowboy of the apocalypse

900 Miles (Punch 'n Run)

Girl From the North Counry (Punch ‘n Run)

Version of LDSB Oblivion 

I’m not the man I thought I’d be
I’ve fallen short of any sympathy
And I’ve been pleadin’ with you God to set me free
I'm tired of all the human things
It’s time for me to leave

I have tried I have failed
I’ve burned all the bridges on my trail
With a broken heart and a wounded knee
I stumble towards oblivion
But you follow me

And your coyotes and your crows are callin’ me
With a mourning howl and cursed scream
And I feel their pain in everything
I know I am one of them
In some distant dream

And I try o’ Lord and I have failed
I burned every bridge along my trail
So with this broken heart and with this broken knee
I stumble towards oblivion
But you still follow me

When you made me Lord you made a loaded gun
And I beat all better men that should have won
when they’re pleadin’ for the mercy of my right hand
O’ there ain’t a single difference
Between a crook and an honest man

I’m not the man Lord I thought I would be
I’ve fallen short of any sympathy
And I’ve been pleading with you God to set me free
I'm tired of all the human things
It’s time for me to leave

Oblivion (Mono e Mono)

Railroad Bill (Mono e Mono)

Trying out recording with my "new" 1969 Martin 00-21

Bye 'n Bye (Mono e Mono)

My 1969 Martin 00-21 and an old chain gang song

900 Miles (Mono e Mono)

Rail Road Bill - Cowboy of the Apocalypse

RRB (CBOTA)

When the end is near, sing yourself a lullaby

MCBU (CBOTA)

Cream your coffee with that lazy moonshine

Lazy Moonshiner (CBOTA)

Diamond Joe

There is a man you'll hear about
Most everywhere you go
his holdings are in Texas
And his name is Diamond Joe
he carries all his money
In a diamond-studded jar
And he never much is bothered
By the process of the law

I was hired to Diamond Joe, boys
I did offer him my hand
And he let me a string of horses
So lame they could not stand
I could have starved to death, boys
He did mistreat me so
I never saved a dollar
In the pay of Diamond Joe

his bread was corn dodger
And his meat I could not chaw
And he drove me nearly damn crazy
With the waggin' of his jaw
And the tellin' of his stories
I mean to let you know
there never was a rounder
That can lie like Diamond Joe

I tried three times to quit him, boys
But he did argue so
I’m still punchin' cattle
In the pay of Diamond Joe
And when I'm called up yonder
And it comes my time to go
Give my blankets to my buddies
Give the fleas to Diamond Joe

Give my blankets to my buddies
Give the fleas to Diamond Joe

DJ (CBOTA)

The Mountain 

I was born on this mountain
A long time ago
Before they knocked down the timber
And strip-mined the coal
When you rose in the mornin'
Before it was light
To go down in that dark hole
And come back up at night
I was born on this mountain
This mountain's my home
She holds me and keeps me
From worry and woe
Well, they took everything she gave
Now they're gone
But I'll die on this mountain
This mountain's my home

I was young on this mountain
But now I am old
And I knew every holler
Every cool swimmin' hole
one night I lay down
And woke up to find
That my childhood was over
And I went down in the mine
I was born on this mountain
This mountain's my home
She holds me and keeps me
From worry and woe
Well, they took everything that she gave
Now they're gone
But I'll die on this mountain
This mountain's my home

There's a hole in this mountain
It's dark and it's deep
And God only knows
All the secrets it keeps
There's a chill in the air
Only miners can feel
There're ghosts in the tunnels
That the company sealed
I was born on this mountain
This mountain's my home
She holds me and keeps me
From worry and woe
Well, they took everything that she gave
Now they're gone
But I'll die on this mountain
This mountain's my home

Steve Earle

The Mountain (CBOTA)

Old English had a single third-person pronoun hē, which had both singular and plural forms, and they wasn't among them. In or about the start of the 13th century, theye was imported from a Scandinavian source (Old Norse þeir, Old Danish, Old Swedish þer, þair), where it was a masculine plural demonstrative pronoun.

Fairwell Theye Mariner (Rusty Dime)

Cowpoke (Rusty Dime)

Rusty Dime (Rusty Dime}

Using Again (Rusty Dime)

I know they hope to hear that whistle blow

900 Miles (Rusty Dime)

A “Blackleg(i.e. scab or strikebreaker) is a person who works despite an ongoing strike.

There is Power in A Union (Rusty Dime)

Propulsively syncopated musical style, one forerunner of jazz and the predominant style of American popular music from about 1899 to 1917. Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century, JTS

Ragtime Classic (Rusty Dime)

Power In A Union (Rusty Dime)

The Indian-head test pattern is a test card that was introduced in 1939 by RCA of Harrison, New Jersey, for calibration of the RCA TK-1 monoscope. It was widely used by television stations worldwide during the black-and-white television broadcasting era. It features a drawing of a Native American wearing a headdress along with numerous graphic elements that test different display aspects.

Sound Check (Under the Overtone)

Pearl Heart was inspired by Annie Oakley, but instead of using her sharpshooting skills for show and entertainment, Heart used them for a life of crime. The Canadian-born outlaw is said to have been a cook in a boardinghouse, while others say she was a demimonde and ran a tent brothel near a local mine. 

When she was low on money, Heart met up with a man named Joe Boot and the two of them robbed a stagecoach on May 30, 1899, at a watering point near Cane Springs Canyon, about 30 miles southeast of Globe Az. Heart and Boot got away with $431.20 and two firearms from the robbery and evaded pursuit by getting lost in the canyon. This was one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in the US. They were caught six days later on June 5th. During her sentencing word spread of the female stagecoach robber and Hart became infamous in the press and the only female inmate at Yuma Territorial Prison. She admittedly loved the attention she received from the press and the press loved her. She was given a large cell with a yard and frequently posed for pictures and regularly granted interviews to reporters. She said: “I shall not consent to be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making.” She served some of her sentence until she became pregnant in prison. There are accounts that she and the warden were lovers, but what is known is that she was pardoned by the governor to save public embarrassment. After her release, she briefly worked in Buffalo Bill's show reenacting her crime but Pearl ultimately disappeared from public view and lived the remainder of her life in obscurity. JTS

Little Maggie (Under the Overtone)

Portrait of John Simpson Chisum from The Story of the Outlaw

John Simpson Chisum (August 16, 1824 – December 22, 1884) was a wealthy cattle baron in the American West in the mid-to-late 19th century. He was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee, and moved with his family to the Republic of Texas in 1837, later finding work as a building contractor. He also served as county clerk in Lamar County. He was of Scottish, English, and Welsh descent.

In 1854, Chisum became engaged in the cattle business and was one of the first to send his herds to New Mexico Territory. He obtained land along the Pecos River by right of occupancy and eventually became the owner of a large ranch in the Bosque Grande, about forty miles south of Fort Sumner, with over 100,000 head of cattle. In 1866-67, Chisum formed a partnership with cattlemen Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving to assemble and drive herds of cattle for sale to the United States Army in Fort Sumner and Santa Fe, New Mexico, to provide cattle to miners in Colorado as well as provide cattle to the Bell Ranch.

A gambler, Chisum frequently played poker with John Horton Slaughter, a lawman in Texas, later in his life in the Arizona Territory. 

More is known about JS Chisum, but JTSunrise cannot fit it all here. 

Cheers if you read this far - it must be time for a nap if so.

Diamond Joe (Under the Overtone)

"There's a place where the terrain absolutely flattens out," he told the BBC. "It's almost like you could take a spirit level out of your tool kit and put in on the highway, and that bubble would just sit right there on dead center. And It goes on that way for about 50 miles.

In the heat of summer, with the heat rising off the road, the telephone poles gradually materialize. First distant in perspective, and then rush towards you.

And then, as it happened, I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles. There was a man on top, talking on a telephone.

He was gone very quickly, and I had another 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. 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, everyman 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.”

Jimmy Webb

Wichita Lineman (Under the Overtone)

"There's a place where the terrain absolutely flattens out," he told the BBC. "It's almost like you could take a spirit-level out of your tool kit and put in on the highway, and that bubble would just sit right there on dead center. And It goes on that way for about 50 miles.

In the heat of summer, with the heat rising off the road, the telephone poles gradually materialize. First distant in perspective, and then rush towards you.

And then, as it happened, I suddenly looked up at one of these telephone poles. There was a man on top, talking on a telephone.

He was gone very quickly, and I had another 25 miles of solitude to meditate on this apparition. 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, everyman 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.”

Jimmy Webb

Wichita Lineman (69 Martin)

"Drivin' Nails in My Coffin" is a country music song written by Jerry Irby. It is a breakup song, telling of a man who has been drinking booze, "driving nails in my coffin over you."

The song was originally recorded and released in 1945 by Jerry Irby. It became a hit in 1946 for both Floyd Tillman and Ernest Tubb. The Tillman record was released on the Columbia label (catalog no. 36998), peaked at No. 2 on Billboard's folk chart in August 1946, and was ranked as the No. 16 record in Billboard's year-end folk juke box chart. Tubb's version was issued on the Decca label (catalog no. 73679) and peaked at No. 5 on the folk chart in December 1946.

The song was later covered by many artists, including Beck and Willie Nelson (duet), Hank Thompson, the Osborne Brothers, the Wilburn Brothers, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Asleep at the Wheel, Rhonda Vincent, Mike Auldridge, Boxcar Willie, Mac Wiseman, Johnny Bush, Charlie Walker, and most recently by JTSunrise after he had too much coffee for breakfast.

Photo - In this photo, we see a bunch of cowboys enjoying a drink and a quick chat with the bartender at the Saloon. This was in the year 1907 in Old Tasacosa, Northern Texas.

Drivin' Nails In My Coffin (69 Martin)

Words and Music by Woody Guthrie (performed by JTSunrise)

I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I got them dust bowl blues,
I just blowed in, and I'll blow back out again.

I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
I guess you've heard about ev'ry kind of blues,
But when the dust gets high, you can't even see the sky.

I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
I've seen the dust so black that I couldn't see a thing,
And the wind so cold, boy, it nearly cut your water off.

I seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
I've seen the wind so high that it blowed my fences down,
It buried my tractor six feet underground.

Well, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
Yes, it turned my farm into a pile of sand,
I had to hit that road with a bottle in my hand.

I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
I spent ten years down in that old dust bowl,
When you get that dust pneumony, boy, it's time to go.

I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
I had a gal, and she was young and sweet,
But a dust storm buried her sixteen hundred feet.

She was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
Yea, she was a good gal, long, tall and stout,
I had to get a steam shovel just to dig my darlin' out.

These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
These dusty blues are the dustiest ones I know,
Buried head over heels in the black old dust, 
I had to pack up and go.
An' I just blowed in, an' I'll soon blow out again.

 

© Copyright 1964 (renewed) by Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. & TRO-Ludlow Music, Inc. (BMI)

Dust Bowl Blues (69 Martin)

Photo of Constable J. L. McGowan standing, rifle in hand, over the corpse of Railroad Bill? strapped to a wooden plank. Patrons could see the corpse for 50 cents in the days following the notorious outlaw's death in March 1896.

The legend of Railroad Bill arose in the winter of 1895, along the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad line in southern Alabama. Based loosely on the exploits of an African American outlaw known as "Railroad Bill," tales of his brief but action-filled career on the wrong side of the law have been preserved in song, fiction, and theater. He has been variously portrayed as a "Robin Hood" character, a murderous criminal, a shape shifter, and most profoundly as a nameless hero and victim of the Jim Crow South as my version of the song intends to present. He was never conclusively identified, but L&N detectives claimed he was a man named Morris Slater, and some residents of Brewton believed him to be a man called Bill McCoy who was shot by local law enforcement.

Railroad BIll (69 Martin)

With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (~250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland. During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust, which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named "black blizzards" or "black rollers" – traveled cross country, reaching as far as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 3 ft (1 m) or less. Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the "Black Sunday" black blizzards of April 14, 1935; Edward Stanley, the Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, coined the term "Dust Bowl" while rewriting Geiger's news story.

Misery, Trouble & Heartache (Misery, Trouble & Heartache)

Version of Charley Crockett Misery, Trouble & Heartache 

        D                      G             D
She left home without any warning
G                  Em                               D
Didn’t ever come back again that day
                G            Em              Bm                    G
With her misery, trouble and heartache my friends
            D                 Em    D
It was gamblin’ time again

So I’m lay’n all my money on the table
This time I'm play’n for keeps
With misery, trouble and heartache my friends
It's gamblin' time again

So so tell me, tell me Father
Where on earth did you go?
With your miser and trouble and heartache my friend
It was gamblin' time again

I was born for gambling
Ain’t here much longer anyway
There’s just misery and trouble and heartache my friends 
And It’s gamblin' time again

Out there’s acres of diamonds
But they can't ever shine as bright as you
Here there’s misery, trouble and heartache my friends
And It's gamblin' time again
O’ here’s to misery, trouble and heartache my friends
Because It's gamblin' time again


Photo - A faro game in a Tombstone, Arizona Territory saloon.

Misery, Trouble & Heartache My Friends - It’s Gamblin’ Time Again (69 Martin)

Based on Misery, Trouble & Heartache - song by Charley Crockett

She left home without any warning
Didn’t ever come back again
With her misery, trouble and heartache my friends
It was gamblin’ time again

So I’m lay’n all my money on the table
This time I'm playing for keeps
With misery, trouble and heartache my friends
It's gamblin' time again

So so tell me, won’t you tell me Father
Where on earth did you go?
With your misery, trouble and heartache my friend
It was gamblin' time again

I was born for gambling
Ain’t here much longer anyway
There’s just misery, trouble and heartache my friends 
And It’s gamblin' time again

Out there’s acres of diamonds
But they can't ever shine as bright as you
Here there’s misery, trouble and heartache my friends
And It's gamblin' time again
So Here’s to misery, trouble and heartache my friends
Because It's gamblin' time again

It’s Gamblin’ Time Again (Misery, Trouble & Heartache)

Based on the Steve Earle song

Mountaintop removal is a relatively new type of coal mining that began in Appalachia in the 1970s as an extension of conventional strip mining techniques. Primarily, mountaintop removal is occurring in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee.

This Mountain (Misery, Trouble & Heartache)

"Blackjack County Chain" is a song written by Red Lane. The song was initially rejected by Charley Pride, who considered the lyrics to be controversial at the time.

When the 13th amendment was approved on December 6, 1865 abolishing forced servitude, a provision was left in allowing the use of the incarcerated for free labor. Until 1980 prisoners in Texas picked cotton for no pay. 

Some 800,000 U.S. prisoners are assigned to work each day. Prisoners in Louisiana make as little as 4 cents per hour. Inmates in California made $1 an hour helping fight the state’s record wildfires this year, but due to regulations barring ex-convicts from emergency medical technician (EMT) licenses which are required by the state to be a full-fledged firefighter, the training does not translate to a job after release.

The song depicts the killing of a Georgia sheriff by members of a black chaingang, as recounted by one of them. Lane (song author) initially offered the song to Charley Pride. Anticipating a possible controversy Pride refrained from recording it.

Lane then offered the song to his friend Willie Nelson. Nelson recently had a hit single with "The Party's Over" that peaked at twenty-four in Billboard's Hot Country Singles. Nelson's version of "Blackjack County Chain" was released with a cover of Floyd Tillman's "Some Other World" on the flipside. The single debuted in May 1967. RCA Records published a full-page advertising promoting the single on Billboard. On its review, the publication praised the work of producer Chet Atkins, while it declared "(Nelson's) rendition “should be working its way up to the top".

The song met instant success, reaching number twenty-four on the country singles chart. At the time the song's popularity was growing, most of the radio stations banned it from airplay due to its content. Nelson re-recorded the song as a duet with Waylon Jennings for their 1983 collaboration Take it to the Limit.

Irish folk singer Christy Moore covered "Blackjack County Chain" on the album Smoke and Strong Whiskey released in 1991. Charley Crockett is an American blues, country and Americana singer, guitarist, and songwriter who also covered the song, releasing his version in 2020 on his studio album Welcome to Hard Times.

Blackjack County Chain (Misery, Trouble & Heartache)

Song by Charley Crockett, performed by JTSunrise

Image from” Voices from the Dust Bowl”. The Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker Collection is an online presentation of selections from a multi-format ethnographic field collection documenting the everyday life of residents of Farm Security Administration (FSA) migrant work camps in central California in 1940 and 1941.

The collection as a whole consists of approximately 18 hours of audio recordings (436 titles on 122 recording discs), 28 graphic images (prints and negatives) and print materials including administrative correspondence, field notes, recording logs, song text transcriptions, dust jackets from the recording discs with handwritten notes, news clippings, publications, and other documents.

Welcome To Hard Times (Misery, Trouble & Heartache)

Labor temples, built by the hundreds nationwide in the early 20th century and now largely disappearing, have long served the dual role of housing union offices and providing a safe space (literally, in the old days) for workers' meetings

Meeting Bell (Labor Temple)

During the Great Depression, farm foreclosures became a disturbingly routine feature of rural life. Between 1929 and 1933, a third of all American farmers lost their farms in the worst disaster to hit American agriculture. Hundreds of thousands of farm-owning families had their hard-earned land seized from under them.

As farmers defaulted on loans and made fewer deposits, many small country banks were forced to go out of business. In 1930 and 1931, more than 3,600 banks failed. Those banks, life insurance companies, and farm mortgage lenders that managed to survive had little choice but to drastically reduce the amount of credit they made available to remaining farmers.

Consequently, farm foreclosures became more prevalent throughout the 1920s, and grew exponentially by the 1930s. While the average foreclosure rate between 1913 and 1920 was 3.2 per 1,000 farms, it jumped to 17.4 per 1,000 farms in 1926, and by 1933 had reached 38.8 per 1,000 farms. During 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, more than 200,000 farms underwent foreclosure. Foreclosure rates were higher in the Great Plains states and some southern states than elsewhere. Farm distress also was more severe in rural areas that were far from urban areas because farm families had fewer opportunities to supplement their earnings with off-farm employment.

My version of “I Don’t Want Your Millions Mister” which is also known as “All I Want” comes from songwriter and union organizer Jim Garland:

I don't want your millions, Mister
I don't want your diamond rings
All I want is to live now Mister
Give me back my ol’ farm and job again

Now, I don't want your Rolls-Royce, Mister
I don't want your pleasure yacht
All I want's just food for my babies
So give me back my old farm you got

We worked to farm and to build this country, Mister
While you got fat and enjoyed a life of ease
You've stolen all we cleared and built now, Mister
You left our children out to starve and freeze

So, I don't want your millions, Mister
I don't want your diamond rings
All I want is to live off my land, Mister
Give me back my old farm and job again

You can have the two old parties, Mister
No difference in them I can see
But with a Farmer-Labor Party
We could set the people of this country free

So, I don't want your millions now Mister
I don't want your pleasure yacht or diamond rings
All I want is farm to live, Mister
Give me back my old farm and job again
Give me back my old farm and job again

JTS

I Don't Want Your Millions (Labor Temple)

The U.S. State Department estimates there are millions of people working in slavery around the world today. Many of the 27 million people in slavery are believed to be involved in the supply chain that goes into creating everyday products used by unsuspecting consumers. There's a way that consumers can determine the amount of slave labor used on a particular product. 

A website may shock many of those who take its lifestyle survey. That survey provides an estimate of how many slaves may have worked to grow food, sew clothing or mine the materials for products like your cell phone.

The web site, www.slaveryfootprint.org, and a similar mobile application were created by the Fair Trade Fu -based nonprofit group, with a $200,000 State Department grant. The fund is headed by Justin Dillon. He said the web site does not single out any particular company, but encourages them to make sure slaves are not part of the supply chain for their products.

Part of that equation is to give consumers a way to understand the issue, personalize the issue for themselves based on anonymous products, and then be able to speak to the producers that they do love and use every day, and tell them they not only know this, but that they would like to work with them, said Dillon.

Many slaves are at work globally.

Dillon defines a slave as anyone forced to work without compensation and who cannot leave the job. Slavery Footprint quantifies evidence of forced labor that may be used in the production process.

The web site was unveiled at a news conference in New York City during the annual Clinton Global Initiative. The U.S. Ambassador at Large for the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Luis CdeBaca, said all consumers have slaves working for them, even if they don’t buy sex from people forced into sex slavery, or have an enslaved maid or a farm where men are forced to pick fruit. 

We create the demand that the traffickers respond to through force and coercion. And through the launch of slaveryfootprint.org, we will be able to have everyone look at their own consumption patterns. Hopefully out of that comes consumer activism, comes group activism,? said CdeBaca.

The president of the Alliance to Stop Slavery, Julia Ormond, appealed to the CEOs of companies to get involved in the issue by investigating their supply chains for possible slavery. She said fiduciary responsibility of CEOs to shareholders should be value, not just profits.

Because profit makes you climb on each others? backs to have competitive prices, and when it gets so competitive, it gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, to a point where you force a condition around the first purchase point that creates an environment for trafficking and slavery, said Ormond.

Growing awareness of problem:

Dillon said the cost of eliminating slaves from the supply chain for multinational corporations would be miniscule. Only the slave drivers would lose money, he said, because the slaves themselves are so plentiful that they are also disposable and therefore driven to the breaking point.

The web site also informs visitors that slaves are used, for example, to mine mica, the mineral used to provide sparkle in cosmetics, or coltan, a component in electronics. Also, rubies and teakwood exported from Burma are reported to use slave labor, as are soccer balls from China, cotton from Uzbekistan, carpeting from India, and shrimp from Southeast Asia.

Participating in the anti-slavery campaign is MTV, the long-time cable-TV music channel. It is donating free time on one of its affiliates to publicize the issue on 300 American college campuses.

JTS

BJC Chain (Labor Temple)

“Wichita Lineman”: The Story Behind the Song
Every year the U. S. Library of Congress chooses 25 recordings to preserve for future generations. The recordings are chosen because they are important parts of American culture, history, or art.

In 2020, Glen Campbell’s recording of Jimmy Webb’s song “Wichita Lineman” was chosen for preservation. This is the story behind the song.

The Wichita Lineman

On a summer afternoon in 1968, songwriter Jimmy Webb was driving on a road in Oklahoma. There were no houses along the road, and no trees—just grass in every direction. Next to the road, there were telephone poles. The poles were in a straight line that went all the way to the horizon.

In the distance Jimmy saw a man on a ladder near the top of a telephone pole. He was a lineman. His job was to check the telephone lines to make sure they were OK. At that time, private companies did not own the telephone lines; county governments owned them. So the man was an employee of a county in Oklahoma—he was “a lineman for the county.”

As he got closer, Jimmy could see that the man had a phone in his hand, and he wastalking to someone. What was the man saying? Perhaps he was reporting that there was a problem on the line. Or perhaps he was reporting that the line was OK.

After he drove past the lineman, Jimmy couldn’t stop thinking about the work he did. It was a lonely job, Jimmy thought. What did the lineman think about all day? Maybe he thought about someone he loved. Maybe he thought about the weather. Maybe he worried that next winter a snowstorm could take down some wires. Or maybe he hoped for rain so that he could take a small vacation.

Jimmy wrote a song about the the lineman. Although he had seen him in Oklahoma, Jimmy imagined that the lineman lived in Kansas, near the city of Wichita. He called the song “Wichita Lineman.” The song became famous. It was a big hit for singer Glen Campbell.

Later Jimmy said, “This song is not just about a lineman. It is about anyone who can think about other things while they work—a truck driver, for example, or a farmworker. It is a song about an ordinary person who has extraordinary thoughts.”

______________________________________________________________

Story: © 2020 Sandra Heyer. All rights reserved. Permission granted to reproduce for classroom use.
Photo of road: © Peter Schoeman | Dreamstime.com. Used with permission.
Photo of lineman: © Andrei Shupilo | Dreamstime.com. Used with permission.

Whicita Lineman (Labor Temple)

“Gentle on My Mind" is a song written by John Hartford that won four 1968 Grammy Awards. Hartford won the award for Best Folk Performance and Best Country & Western Song (Songwriter). The other two awards Best Country & Western Solo Vocal Performance, Male and Best Country & Western Recording, went to American country music singer Glen Campbell for his version of Hartford's song.

The song was released in June 1967 as the only single from the album of the same name. It was re-released in July 1968 to more success. Glen Campbell's version has received over 5 million plays on the radio. Campbell used "Gentle on My Mind" as the theme to his television variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, between 1969 and 1972. Dean Martin's version, recorded in 1968, was a major hit in the United Kingdom; three versions of the song, Campbell's, Martin's and Patti Page's, all reached the top ten of the U.S. easy listening chart in 1968. The song was ranked number 16 on BMI's Top 100 Songs of the Century.

JTSunrise

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks