I’m going to miss you, Glen Campbell, but may follow in your footsteps someday as my Mother had Alzheimer’s too. I collected all of your 8-tracks and 45 records as a teen, a simple Country Boy. Like so many others at that age, I rode with you and the Wichita Lineman and By The Time we Got To Phoenix, you were Gentle On My Mind.
There was Less of Me when we came to Galveston but Bobbi Gentry was My Elusive Dream. You told us to Try a Little Kindness on those Southern Nights as we sang along to It’s Only Make Believe and Where’s the Playground, Susie. From Little Green Apples to Dream the Impossible Dream you helped us learn to Let It Be Me.
Honey Come Back showed us your True Grit but when you and Tanya Tucker were Shoulder to Shoulder in those Dream Lover days we were worried that Too Many Mornings were just empty lyrics.
Anne Murray arrived and I’ll Say a Little Prayer was more than just a song as we’d seen Both Sides Now. After the Canadian Sunset we could again sing along with United We Stand and Let Me Be the One.
When I first heard the news I thought that It’s Only Make Believe because even The Everyday Housewife would gladly Give Me Back That Old Familiar Feeling. I Wanna Live too, Glen and in the words of your 1967 hit, The World I Used To Know, “Someday the world I used to know will come along and bid you go, and I’ll leave us behind cause love is just a state of mind.”
In The Last Thing On My Mind you sang beautifully, “Please Don’t Go. Are You Going Away with No Word of Farewell, will there be not a trace left behind?” Thanks for asking us to Grow Old With Me. We are and I’m glad that you’re not really Burning Bridges because Until that day, All I Have to Do is Dream and you’ll remain the Rhinestone Cowboy.
Godspeed, Glen.
Thanks to CBS for this great farewell tribute:
And now a look ahead to the Sochi 2014 Olympics, presented by Coca Cola: