I recently learned two things about Glen Campbell. The first is that he might be a cultural touchstone of a particular generation. The second is that he recorded a version of “These Days,” a song that seems tailor-made for the current moment surrounding Glen Campbell, who was just honored with a tribute album made up entirely of groundbreaking posthumous duets.
He recorded “These Days” on the second-to-last album of his decades-long career. An album ironically titled, Meet Glen Campbell. He was a singer, but not a songwriter, so like all his recordings, the ten selections on Meet Glen Campbell were musical works written by others. The 2008 album also included his interpretations of Green Day, the Foo Fighters, Lou Reed, John Lennon, Paul Westerberg, and other unexpected writers as he leaned into rock. Mostly known as a crossover singer, ranging effortlessly from country to pop throughout the 1960s and ’70s, he’s been called “genre-defying” by those taking the time for a closer look. On Meet Glen Campbell, he nailed it.
Glen Campbell was born in Billings, Arkansas, the seventh of twelve children. His father was a sharecropper and Campbell said money was so scarce, “a dollar bill looked like a saddle blanket.” With his family, he picked cotton, but they were musical, and at the age of four, he learned to play guitar—a purchase from the Sears catalog. In 1960, he moved to Los Angeles to become a session player. There, he became part of The Wrecking Crew—the legendary studio musicians who backed the Beach Boys and Frank Sinatra; basically, anyone recording in LA.
By 1967, he was collaborating with Oklahoma native, Jimmy Webb, who had his own moving to LA story. “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” was first, followed by “Wichita Lineman,” followed by “Galveston.” Those three songs sent both Campbell and Webb into the pop culture stratosphere. These were the soundtrack of the 1960s. Galveston is a coastal town in Texas, but the song is about a young man in Vietnam.
By 1969, he was hosting Glen Campbell’s Goodtime Hour, which was musically themed but had enough comedy that its writers included Rob Reiner and Steve Martin. That year, he appeared in the Oscar-winning film, True Grit, alongside John Wayne.
His popularity ebbed and flowed, as happens with many entertainers, and there was also the drugs and alcohol combo that he overcame, and he remained active until learning he was suffering from Alzheimer’s. He recorded his last album, Ghost on the Canvas, as a farewell that he paired as a companion piece with Meet Glen Campbell.
When he passed in 2017, Amanda Petrusich wrote a warm and personal “postscript” for The New Yorker with a compilation of his career highlights. She counts “Rhinestone Cowboy” as the song he’s most known for, though others would say it’s the Jimmy Webb trio of hits, which I’d agree with. It’s fair to argue—who am I to take on Amanda Petrusich’s judgment?—though in the end, Glen Campbell set his life story to “These Days,” so perhaps that’s where we should turn and look.
The song, filled with imagery of loss and regret, fits his life like any one of the rhinestone studded cowboy suits he wore on stage, but actually the song has a distinct history. Long associated with the original recording by Christa Päffgen, the German-born model and singer who’d begun her musical career with the Velvet Underground and who was known professionally as Nico. Her version on Chelsea Girls, her début solo album, was one of two songs given to her by Jackson Browne when he was then enamored of her and is considered iconic.
Browne had been sixteen when the song was written, a fact that comes up often as improbable, given the haunting lyrics (“please don’t confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them”). According to Browne, he’d been influenced by The Beatles and Bob Dylan and that sort of brooding was what one wrote about; “the arc of your development as an artist and the arc of your development as a person.”
Perhaps because of the lyrics, perhaps because of the association with Nico, who as a post-1960s chanteuse seemed even darker than Marianne Faithfull, “These Days” had a bit of a resurgence as part of the soundtrack for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. With a kohl-eyed Gwyneth Paltrow gently framed against a Green Line bus, it could only have been Nico’s version.
Ray Padgett has maintained a blog on cover songs since 2007. In his words, a cover gets its power in the way it shows “another side of the musician [and] how they can totally transform a song.” That was the thing about Glen Campbell, his music was imbedded with his unique talent. “He had a way of inhabiting every song he recorded.”
Watching his sepia-filtered “These Days” video, as a montage of aged photographs rounds out the lyrics, it seems the song could only have ever been about his life and times, no matter what other versions you’ve heard or seen on YouTube. His interpretation of Jackson Browne is almost some other song. You’re instantly drawn to that version, and the version of Glen Campbell he’s revealing with it.
Watch and be stunned and have your heart broken.
Episode Notes
This Week’s Recommended Reading
Eric Clapton, speaking on the duet project, “I’ve always admired Glen Campbell’s guitar playing and loved his singing. I was moved recently when one of his final performances, during his illness, came on TV. When I was asked to sing and play with Glen on the song Jakob Dylan wrote, it all just felt right, and I am happy to be part of it.”
This Week’s Music
Taking a page from the “Cover Me” blog, here are five versions of “Galveston”:
"Galveston" by Glen Campbell (on Spotify and Amazon Music).
"Galveston" by Glen Campbell & Jimmy Webb (on Spotify and Amazon Music).
"Galveston (feat. Lucinda Williams)" by Jimmy Webb (on Spotify and Amazon Music).
"Galveston" by Susan Cowsill (on Spotify and Amazon Music).
"Galveston" by The Lemonheads on YouTube.
Just One More Thing
If you listened to any of the versions of “Galveston” tell me your favorite.
Loved watching Jackson Browne’s face as he listened to the demo recording
Rhinestone Cowboy was the first 45 I bought on my own, at the local record store where I also could pick up the free weekly WLS Big 89 chart.