Galveston
A reason to listen
This piece contains links to a number of musical performances. If you have limited time, it might be best to read first, then go back to the music later. However, if you have the luxury of 10 minutes or more to spend on Words & Music at one sitting, be my guest…
I was asked to deliver a new sailboat from Palm Beach to Houston a couple of years ago. Building my playlist for the ride I saw that we would pass Galveston in the final stage of the journey
The obvious tune jumped into my head - Glen Campbell’s smash hit Galveston from 1969. Before leaving I grabbed a few other versions of the song to listen to in my quiet hours alone during the passage
Composed by the prolific Jimmy Webb, this was written at the height of the Vietnam War, and takes the point of view of a soldier desperate to overcome his fear of death in combat by reminiscing on romantic encounters back in Southeast Texas
Glen Campbell, switched up Webb’s original arrangement of Galveston with a rousing anthem-style chorus. In a 2016 interview, Webb explains
“I play it for the audience the way I wrote it, which is kind of elegiac and more subdued than Glen’s rip-roaring, uptempo version of the song”
Over the 1,047nm, 174hr passage I got to appreciate the slower ballad approach that Webb speaks of. Listen to his 2010 commentary and live performance of the song from WFUV radio in New York
My personal favorite version of Galveston is by David Nail from his 2014 album I’m A Fire with Lee Anne Womak singing a wonderfully sensitive vocal harmony, that amazing Nashville country pedal steel guitar and Glen Campbell-style guitar solo toward the end of the piece
But of course, its the original Glen Campbell hit that everybody knows…recorded live with orchestra some 32 years after the original hit featuring his virtuoso guitar playing
Not surprisingly, the cruiser USS Galveston adopted the song as its own. According to Webb, when the USS Galveston was based in the South China Sea, it was supported by the oil replenishment vessel USS Wichita. he sailors aboard two U.S. Navy warships As it awaited refueling, the USS Galveston would play Galveston over its PA system to the approaching USS Wichita, which responded by blasting Webb’s Wichita Lineman back across the open water
A great story about a great song…