I have been thinking about my oldest Sister, and one of my Brothers, and Galveston, Texas, and Glen Campbell. I have a departed Sister who really loved the music of Glen Campbell. If they have to, Sisters should not die before they are like 1,000 billion years old. And my Brother told me he was worried about a hurricane hitting Galveston and making the oil spill and its impact on the coast worse, faster. I sat down with him yesterday to watch CNN and we agreed that the billow of oil and mud they were showing on the underwater monitor is, sadly, iconic. I seriously thought I saw Lady GaGa in an advertisement for the Larry King Show already wearing a headwrap that looked like that underwater cloud oil mud poof, that's what I told him. Good Brothers always laugh at your bad jokes. We were flipping channels and ran across MSNBC and about puked because they had Eliot Spitzer front and center as a host. Gag, gag, gag. The channel was changed. MSNBC you are skank for that one. My own favorite Glen songs that I have heard, without knowing them all, are
Southern Nights (this is the one I remember my Sister sweeping the kitchen floor to when doing chores),
Witchita Lineman,
Gentle on My Mind,
By The Time I Get To Phoenix and
Rhinestone Cowboy. He was good (for a non actor) in
True Grit with John Wayne. I listened to
Galveston late that night after visiting with my Brother. The last time I was in Galveston that I can remember was in the early 90's, I was barefoot on the beach and my toe hit this mushy dark thing in the sand and it turned out to be an oil glob. I am not kidding, the stuff would not completely, with no coloration, come off for about five weeks. It ruined a mountain of sand (that I used to blot it and rub on it), a towel I wrapped my foot in, a car mat when the towel came off, napkins, bars of soap, a jug of degreaser and various scrubbers at first trying to get it off (without surgically removing my toe which was a group suggestion). The last of the color and smell finally just wore away with the skin. I call it the summer I couldn't wear sandals.
This song is for my Sister, Brother and Galveston, but not Spitzerfacehead until he has more time to think about what he did. Thank you, Glen Campbell (who is a prolific guy with over 50 years in music, his oldest child is over 52, he stopped fist fighting with the much younger Tanya Tucker in the 80's only to knee a police officer in the 00's after being arrested for DUI. It lessens my like for you and your music, GC, I admit it. At least you were held accountable, but 10 days in jail for this is little to pay. If binding ethics were a part of the entertainment industry we would have no show biz or politics.)
Songfacts. com says,
This was written by songwriter Jimmy Webb, who also wrote Campbell's hits "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Wichita Lineman." Webb also wrote "MacArthur Park," which was a hit for both Richard Harris and Donna Summer, and "Up-Up and Away," which was recorded by The 5th Dimension.
Galveston is a city on the coast of Texas that attracts lots of hurricanes. Webb was on a beach in Galveston when he wrote this. He made up the story about a soldier in the Spanish-American war and the girl he left behind.
The Vietnam War was going on when Campbell released this. It was considered an antiwar song.
This made the CMT Top Ten list of all-time great country music songs.
