Leo Adam Biga's My Inside Stories

Glen Campbell’s sweet goodbye

©by Leo Adam Biga

When pop-country crossover music legend Glen Campbell announced that he has Alzheimer’s disease a few years ago, he could have retreated into the shadows but instead he made some courageous decisions that put him and the disease quarely in the public eye. First, he went public about his diagnosis. Then he went on an extensive national tour to give himself, his family, his friends and his fans one last chance to savor his talents before the ravages to his mind and body made it too late. This was a farewell tour unlike any other. Start with the fact that audiences knew up front that this Glen Campbell was already damaged goods and so any idea of flawless performances went out the window. This was all about him expressing love to his fans and the fans in turn giving their love right back. Making it all the more poignant was that Campbell’s back up band consisted of some of his adult children and longtime cronies. His wife Kim Wollen was along for the entire 100-plus cities tour.

Campbell also allowed a documentary film crew to accompany him on and off tour as his disease progressed and his faculties diminished. I recently saw that film, “I’ll Be Me,” directed by James Keach on Netflix. It is as intimate and vulnerable a portrait of an artist as I’ve ever seen. The challenges of the disease to the aflicted and to those around him are seen up close and personal but it never seems intrusive or exploitive. It’s all done out of love and public service.

The tributes to Campbell and his artisty in that film put in perspective just how respected he is by his peers, past and present, who recognize his greatness.

The film led me to search online for more things featuring Campbell and through all of it I’ve come away with a much deeper appreciation for the gifts he gave us as a singer, songwriter, guitarist and performer. He’s a consummate entertainer whose like is rarely seen. He conquered every medium open to pop-country musicians and erased boundaries between styles, genres and categories.

He’s recorded many tunes that became and remain standards in the Great American  Songbook. But there’s a particular song, “Gentle On My Mind,” whose lyrics have poignant resonance with his affliction. I have copied and pasted the lyrics below. That song, of course, originated during the peak of Campbell’s career and it’s only now, in light of his condition, that it has this other, deeper meaning.

Not long before Campbell’s mind and motor skills left him, he and producer Julian Raymond co-wrote an original song, “I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” for the documentary and this much acclaimed song, which I only now became aware of, is one of the simplest yet most profound meditations on memory loss to be found anywhere. It is a beautiful heartbreaking ballad that stacks up with the best work this artist ever did. That he had the presence of mind to make this his final message to the world is an act of radical grace. I don’t know of another example of a recording artist who spoke so directly to the very thing that was stealing his mind andvery being even while writing and recording the piece and giving it as a gift to the world. He recorded the tune with some of his old session musician mates from The Wrecking Crew.

The words and music remind me, and I’m sure many others, of some tracks on “Pet Sounds,” the brilliant Beach Boys album he played on during his session or studio musician days.

Just as “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” fearlessly and frankly addresses his disease, his final album,”Ghost on the Canvas” does the same in exploring the ups and downs of a life that’s straight out of a Hollywood move. He went from rural poverty in Arkansas to smallt-time band work and recordings to becoming a session king to breaking big as a solo artist who won Grammys, co-starred in movies, headlined his own prime time TV show, went through four marriages, battled alcohol and drug addiction and then, when he finally got it all together, found his memory going.

The video to “I’m Not Gonna Miss You” is breathtakingly moving. Enjoy it here–

Here are the lyrics to “I’m Not Gonna Miss You”:

I’m still here, but yet I’m gone

I don’t play guitar or sing my songs

They never defined who I am

The man that loves you ’til the end

You’re the last person I will love

You’re the last face I will recall

And best of all, I’m not gonna miss you

Not gonna miss you

I’m never gonna hold you like I did

Or say I love you to the kids

You’re never gonna see it in my eyes

It’s not gonna hurt me when you cry

I’m never gonna know what you go through

All the things I say or do

All the hurt and all the pain

One thing selfishly remains

Songwriters
GLEN CAMPBELL, JULIAN RAYMOND

Published by
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.

Song Discussions is protected by U.S. Patent 9401941. Other patents pending.

And here are the lyrics to “Gentle On My Mind”:

It’s knowin’ that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin’ bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it’s knowin’ I’m not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind

It’s not clingin’ to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin’
It’s just knowing that the world
Will not be cursing or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you’re movin’ on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you’re just gentle on my mind

Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman’s cryin’ to her mother
‘Cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me till I’m blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin’ on the back roads
By the rivers flowin’ gentle on my mind

I dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin’ cracklin’ cauldron
In some train yard
My beard a rustlin’ coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands ’round a tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you’re waitin’ from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smilin’, ever gentle on my mind

Written by John Hartford • Copyright © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

And here is Glen performing it–