When I was growing up there were two kinds of music on the radio: country and western. Very few of the country singers I like now featured on that local radio station, though the music of Johnny Cash was a regular fixture. Another popular singer on the station was Glen Campbell and, in particular, his 1975 international hit, Rhinestone Cowboy. The song had hit the top of both the country and pop charts in the US that year and also made it to number one in Ireland. I remember it being played a lot in subsequent years and it was certainly one of my favourites at the time. Of course, I had absolutely no idea what a rhinestone cowboy was, though my knowledge of Westerns made me think he was a gunslinger of some kind. I also misheard the line “offers coming over the phone” as either “awful’s” or “Arthur’s.” I also loved this wonderful rhyming couplet: “There’ll be a load of compromisin’/On the road to my horizon.” I had the pleasure of seeing Mr Campbell in concert twice over the last few years and I was really impressed by his energy and enthusiasm. The highlights on those occasions were Wichita Lineman and By the Time I Get to Phoenix, though I also sang along to Rhinestone Cowboy. The version I’ve chosen, however, is by a now defunct Irish band who released it as their last single back in 1998. It was an appropriate choice for Something Happens because the Dublin band could identify with the plight of the character in the song. As lead singer Tom Dunne says on the single: “His is the tale of ordinary failure in the entertainment industry. So is ours.”
Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell cover) – Something Happens
I hope the Dublin Opinion blog doesn’t mind that I borrowed the image
Town Full of Losers 