Galveston – Jimmy Webb

Guest post by Michael J Roberts,
Author of “33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters”

Galveston – Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb was trained in music in Southern California and entered the business via a contract with Motown’s publishing arm in 1965. His gift with melody and memorable hooks soon meant his songs were all over the top 40 and successes with The Fifth Dimension, Glen Campbell and Richard Harris consolidated his reputation. Webb wrote a fine anti-war song in 1969, Galveston, which meant the lyric would inevitably be associated with Vietnam, but Webb set the narrative in 1863 and the American Civil War in the Texas port city of the title to avoid a direct correlation and assume a more poetic take on the wider concept of war.

Musically speaking….

…it’s very straightforward in the original recording, which Campbell trots out in F, a very non-guitar friendly key.  The chords move to a 4, 5 and minor 2 sequence (Bb C and Gm) before hitting the relative minor (Dm) and closing out with a 4 to 1 (Bb to F). Campbell employs a lyrical baritone guitar for some fine diatonic figures, as he’d done for Wichita Lineman.

This is an excerpt from my 33 Great Songs 33 Great Songwriters book available everywhere eBooks are sold.