But the Wichita Lineman is still on the line...

And I need you more than want you...

And I want you for all time,

But the Wichita Lineman is still on the line...

Romance, rural living, excess, loss and the love that can never be...

Courtesy of Mr Glen Campbell...

Merci monsieur...

And more than thirty years on...

And, omigod, the originator of so many wonderful country songs, written in his twenties, and still stunning today, Jimmy Webb:

What am I going to reminisce about today, with this song? Where does it take my mind back to?

I don't really know. I remember listening to the radio quite a lot when I was younger. I used to record the Top 20 onto a Soundhog cassette tape, after my weekly bath, trying to time it just right to cut off the inane DJ's chatter from spoiling my favourite songs, like this one.

...Except I would only have been a tot when it was first released in 1968. Love of it must just be in my blood somehow. I probably saw Glen Campbell on TV, Morecambe and Wise or Des O'Connor's show...

What would we have been like in those days if our generation(s) had had the luxuries and distractions of Youtube and I-Tunes?

I can scarce imagine it.

We didn't even have Central Heating at home when I was a nipper. I still have the tiny pale scar on the top of my milky-white thigh where a spark flew from the coal fire and singed through my (highly flammable) nylon nightie one evening while I was warming myself before bed-time with a cup of hot milk. My childhood staple. If I'm feeling icky or wanting to see myself off to sleep, a cup of frothy hot milk with one sugar can still do the trick for me...

If you could pick any 'luxury' item, product or thingie from the current era and take it back with you to when you were a Teenager, what would it be?

Fhina is on the line and she's listening...