Bob Dylan is widely credited as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. The Nobel Prize-winning songsmith has penned beloved classics from “Like a Rolling Stone” to “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and his lyrics span everything from religion to politics to that great mystery called love.

Because of all this, it makes sense that fans would be curious about songs that Dylan himself enjoys and admires. It turns out that the artist reportedly feels that one song stands above all the rest. That song is a legendary 1968 tune by Glen Campbell called “Wichita Lineman.”

The Story of “Wichita Lineman”

The cover of Dylan Jones’ book Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun For the World’s Greatest Unfinished Song bears a single quote: “The greatest song ever written.” That quote is attributed to Dylan, and it seems to be all that Dylan has said on the record about the track. But those five words, in classic Dylan fashion, say a lot.

“Wichita Lineman” was written by Jimmy Webb, who came up with the idea for the track on a drive through the flat, grassy lands of Oklahoma. He saw nothing but telephone poles stretching as far as the eye could see. Then, at one point, he came upon a single man working atop one of these poles, talking into a phone. That image of the solitary man in the middle of that vast landscape moved Webb.

“It was such a curiosity to see a human being perched up there,” he told Blender magazine in 2001, per the Financial Times, in “an area that’s real flat and remote, almost surreal in its boundless horizons and infinite distances.”

When Glen Campbell called him up and asked if he could write a hit, Webb sat down at his Hollywood Hills piano and began writing a song inspired by that singular lineman. Later, he asked Campbell to come over and listen to what he had come up with. “When I heard it I cried,” Campbell told BBC Radio 4. 

The song was ultimately an effort to touch on the place where human longing meets the sublime. “I was trying to express the inexpressible,” Webb told Jones in September 2019, per Lit Hub, “the yearning that goes beyond yearning, that goes into another dimension, when I wrote that line.”

Webb had originally intended to complete the track’s third verse, but Campbell loved it the way it was when he first heard it, and decided to add a solo to the end instead of more words. The song’s unfinished quality makes it all the more resonant, adding to the image of a man sending out loving words on a telephone wire beneath a giant, lonely sky.

Other Songs Dylan Has Praised

Dylan has expressed love for a variety of songs over the years. Another track that’s been subject to his praise is Link Wray’s “Rumble,” which Dylan once called the “finest instrumental ever.” He also opened five of his shows in 2005 with a version of the track.

Yet another song that Dylan favors is the Eagles track “Pretty Maids All in a Row,” which he once said “could be one of the best songs ever.” He also had high praise for the Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” “They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, just outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid…I knew they were pointing the direction of where music had to go,” he said of the tune.

Dylan has also extensively praised the artists Randy Newman and Leonard Cohen, and has expressed a penchant for a huge variety of artists over the years, from Eminem to Metallica. It’s good to know that one of the most legendary artists ever isn’t afraid of spreading the love.