Glen Campbell married his friend’s ex-wife in 1976. A few months later, his new album had a song with her name in the title.
The song is still out there. The marriage lasted four years.
Here is the whole story, including the part Glen himself talked about years later.
The Friend, the Wife, and the Year Everything Changed
Sarah Barg was 18 when she married Mac Davis. Mac was a Texas songwriter on his way up. He had written “In the Ghetto” and “A Little Less Conversation” for Elvis Presley. In 1972, he scored his own No. 1 hit, “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me.”
Mac and Glen Campbell were friends. They worked in the same business and moved in the same circles. Glen had even recorded one of Mac’s songs, a chart entry called “Everything a Man Could Ever Need.”
Then came 1975. On the radio, it was Glen’s year. “Rhinestone Cowboy” was everywhere that summer. At home, it was a different story. In the early fall, his second wife, Billie Jean, filed for divorce.
That same year, Glen started dating Sarah. By then, she and Mac were estranged.
Gossip put it harsher than that, and some fans still do. What is on the record is simple. Glen and Sarah married in September 1976. Glen was 40 years old.
A Song Called “This Is Sarah’s Song”
In February 1977, about five months after the wedding, Capitol Records released Glen’s album Southern Nights. The title track went to No. 1. Track two was a quiet ballad called “This Is Sarah’s Song.”
Here is the detail most fans miss. Glen did not write it. Jimmy Webb did. Webb was the songwriter behind “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Wichita Lineman.”
So was the song about Glen’s new wife? We could not find a source that says so. Webb has said he rarely wrote with one singer in mind. He once called “Wichita Lineman” “one of the few I ever wrote for an artist.”
So the honest way to put it is this: months after his wedding, Glen chose to record a song with his wife’s name in the title.
He did not just leave it on the album. On April 2, 1977, Glen played the Royal Festival Hall in London with an orchestra behind him. “This Is Sarah’s Song” was in the set. The show came out that November as Live at the Royal Festival Hall.
At the time of that concert, the marriage was about seven months old.
Four Years, One Son, and a Magazine Cover
Glen and Sarah had a son, Dillon, born in 1980.
That same spring, Mac Davis was on the cover of People magazine. The May 26, 1980 issue promised Mac talking about his ex-wife and Glen Campbell.
Mac was doing fine. “It’s Hard to Be Humble” became a top 10 country hit that year, and he was working in movies too.
Glen’s life was heading the other way. In December 1980, he and Sarah divorced. Soon after, he was in a very public relationship with singer Tanya Tucker, who was more than 20 years younger than him.
Four years. One son. And a song with her name on it.
What Glen Later Admitted
For years, the story people told was about Mac and the friendship. Glen later pointed to something else.
He admitted he had started using cocaine in 1975. That is the same year he started seeing Sarah. He said his cocaine use kept growing during the marriage, and it helped end it.
Glen did not hide from this. In his 1994 autobiography, Rhinestone Cowboy, written with Tom Carter, he wrote plainly about the drinking, the drugs and the years he was not proud of.
The turn came later. In 1982, he married Kim Woollen, a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette. That marriage is often credited with helping straighten him out. He gave up cocaine, and in time he quit drinking too. Kim stayed by his side until his death in 2017.
“This Is Sarah’s Song” is still track two on Southern Nights. Jimmy Webb wrote it. Glen sang it in London when the marriage was new. And by Glen’s own account, what pulled them apart was not a song or a rumor. It was a habit he picked up the same year it all began.