Glen Campbell - By The Time I Get To Phoenix (1967 - Live) video free download

From Wiki: By the Time I Get to Phoenix" is an American pop song written by Jimmy Webb. Originally recorded by Johnny Rivers in 1965, it was made famous by Glen Campbell, appearing as the opening track on the latter's 1967 album of the same name. Campbell's version reached #2 on the U.S. Country charts in 1968, and won two Grammy Awards—for Best Vocal Performance, Male; and Best Contemporary Male Solo Vocal Performance. Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) named it the third most performed song from 1940 to 1990. Frank Sinatra called it "the greatest torch song ever written."

The inspiration for "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was Webb's breakup from Susan Ronstadt, a cousin of singer Linda Ronstadt. Both remained friends, even after her marriage to another man. The relationship itself, which peaked in mid-1965, was the primary influence for "MacArthur Park," another Webb composition.

The song consists of a man describing his decision to leave his woman, by writing her a note telling her, and his descriptions of what he expects she will be experiencing as he arrives at certain locations. (When a woman sings the song, she is the one leaving, and the man is the one staying, but otherwise the song is unchanged.)

By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising... By the time I make Albuquerque she'll be working...

and

By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'...

Webb, a Los Angeles resident when he wrote the song, was raised in Elk City, Oklahoma. As far as the geography implied, "[a fan] told me, 'This song is impossible.' And so it is. It's a kind of fantasy about something I wish I would have done, and it sort of takes place in a twilight zone of reality." He states that he should have left but didn't; "it's more of a song about something I wish I had done than something I really did, in that I did not get in my car and drive back to Oklahoma to punish this young woman for not reciprocating my love and affection"

Lyrics:

By the time I get to Phoenix (Webb)

By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising

She'll find the note I left hangin' on her door

She'll laugh when she reads the part that says I'm leavin'

'Cause I've left that girl so many times before

By the time I make Albuquerque she'll be working

She'll prob'ly stop at lunch and give me a call

But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringin'

Off the wall that's all

By the time I make Oklahoma she'll be sleepin'

She'll turn softly and call my name out loud

And she'll cry just to think I'd really leave her

Tho' time and time I try to tell her so

She just didn't know I would really go.