On the rare chance that you are unfamiliar with Glen Campbell’s 1969 version of “Galveston,” brighten your day and sing along with Glen:
Galveston, oh Galveston
I still hear your sea winds blowing
I still see her dark eyes glowing
She was twenty-one
When I left Galveston
Galveston, oh Galveston
I still hear your sea waves crashing
While I watch the cannon flashing
And I clean my gun
And I dream of Galveston
I still see her standing by the water
Standing there, looking out to sea
And is she waiting there for me?
On the beach where we used to run
Galveston, oh Galveston
I am so afraid of dying
Before I dry the tears she’s crying
Before I see your sea birds flying
In the sun, at Galveston
The song was written by Jimmy Webb, and these are the lyrics he sang when he got around to recording it himself for the first time in 1972. But they aren’t the original lyrics. We know this because Don Ho sang “Galveston” in 1968, a year before Campbell took it to no. 1 on the country chart. There are subtle changes in the first and third verses, but the second verse is altogether different:
Galveston, oh Galveston
Wonder if she could forget me
I’d go home if they would let me
Put down this gun
And go to Galveston
Webb wrote “Galveston” during the height of the Vietnam War, and for the conservative Campbell, Webb’s original lyric flirted with an anti-war sentiment, so Campbell changed the verse. There were other changes. Ho’s lugubrious vocal was replaced by Campbell’s open-hearted tenor, the sluggish pace became brisk, and the syrupy arrangement gave way to soaring strings and a cheerfully galumphing bass guitar solo by Campbell himself.
Perhaps inadvertently, Campbell made Galveston the star of “Galveston.” The new version could have been commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce. (Sure enough, in 1969 Galveston invited Webb to be Grand Marshal of the Shrimp Festival Parade. Against his better judgment, he accepted, and got pelted with shrimp because of his long hair.)
But the song is not about Galveston. Nor is it a subtle protest against the Vietnam War, a once-popular interpretation even of Campbell’s sanitized version. As Webb has said more than once, it’s about a soldier wishing he were somewhere else. The somewhere happens to be Galveston, because (presumably) it’s his home, and because (emphatically) Galveston is the place he remembers when he remembers his girlfriend.
Why did Webb choose Galveston? Why did he choose Phoenix in “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” or Wichita in “Wichita Lineman”? As far as I can tell, Webb has never answered these questions. But I’m sure the answers have much more to do with the priorities of a good lyricist – meter, rhythm, images – than with anything unique to the places.
What is clear is that Webb thought Campbell got “Galveston” entirely wrong. Listeners would have to wait three years to hear how its author thought an authentic “Galveston” should sound.
Madison Searle 