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For a while, before I looked it up, I thought the lineman had a device that enabled him to listen in on conversations by attaching it to the wire, but it seems that's not possible. (I don't understand any of the technology.)
UK phones are just using 50V DC across the pair (80V AC to activate the ringer). You can easily patch in to copper pair at any point between phone and termination in the exchange to listen in or speak onto the line. (I used to have to do this when I did some work at BT.)
FTTC (Fibre to the cabinet) means the broadband connection is only on the copper between the cabinet and the property, voice is still carried by the original copper pair all the way back to the exchange but the data portion is dealt with my a DSLAM in the cabinet and then data flows via fibre back to the exchange.
Greenbank-
You have reminded me of what holes and poles engineers are actually like.
Based on the BT group intranet news page, the Wichita Lineman was either a hero that gave CPR to a granny or was involved in a organised gang of copper thieves
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Ah, thanks. I still don't understand the line 'I hear you singing in the wire', although the line 'I can hear you through the whine' must then refer to him eavesdropping on her conversations ...
Alf0nse
Oliver Schick
People specifically like the lines: 'And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time.' I think it's an overrated song, too, but anything that was once that successful will have an afterlife. There are reasons for the success of the Glen Campbell recording in particular, quite apart from its major label status and consequent marketing power, etc. Glen Campbell was a superb performer, one of the best in music at the time. The sound is certainly not 'country' but has huge crossover appeal, excellent production, and the 'Wrecking Crew'. Again, I think it's overrated (and I can't say I much like the sound, especially the string sauce), but I do sometimes wish today's MOR stuff still had the same production values.
Lyrically, it certainly isn't an 'ode to a shit job', but about the supposed connection the lineman feels with his beloved, who it is implied has rejected him, through the telephone wires. I've never understood how that image is supposed to work. For a while, before I looked it up, I thought the lineman had a device that enabled him to listen in on conversations by attaching it to the wire, but it seems that's not possible. (I don't understand any of the technology.) So, for some reason, the lineman hears her 'singing through the wire' and is therefore still somehow connected to her, 'still on the line'. I can only assume that people think this a highly convincing image, although I'm not sure it stands up to scrutiny.
(With my usual talent for putting my foot in it, I once used 'Wichita Lineman' as a fairly randomly-picked example of a song I considered overrated. It turned out that the person I was talking to considered it their favourite song. Oops. :) )