It came as a shock to hear Glen Campbell had died yesterday. I wasn’t really sure he was still alive, so little had I followed his career or heard of any musical activity from him for a long time. Maybe he’d been shuffled to a place of anonymity in my psyche after Rhinestone Cowboy. But musical influences aren’t always apparent or outwardly active, and I know that Campbell was present in my formative years on my parents’ turntable. Songs like Galveston, Where’s the Playground Susie and By the Time I get to Phoenix still left an indelible impression on me, even if subliminally.

Nestled alongside the Glen Campbell Country LP in the vinyl collection was Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian crooner with his own impressive catalogue of classics. Songs that invoked times and places, that you’d never physically been yet had lived or were going to live, whether you liked it or not. If You could Read my Mind is my favourite heartache song, and it only seems fitting that Mr Campbell would do it the justice it deserves here.