Although country music generally doesn’t find much room for itself in my list of preferred music, I did snag the top 500 greatest songs ever as decided by Rolling Stone, and Wichita Lineman has twanged its way into my heart.

If I didn’t know what else Glen Campbell was famous for I’d almost call it folk music instead. I guess folk is one of the places where country and rock first found their common ground. Lineman goes along nicely between Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, and CSNY.

The further back in time my musical interests take me the closer I feel I’m getting to something pure and magical, like the distilled essense of music before it fractured and shot off in thousands of different directions. And yet it still seems a very long way away.