A guy approached me one night after a concert. He had a map, he had all the times, and he had a stopwatch. And he showed me how it was impossible. That's how Jimmy Webb convinced Rachel Thomas to sing By The Time I Get To Phoenix in 1967 — his band Electric Prune had just dissolved at San Francisco Expo Center, and he knew this song needed someone else. He didn't give her sheet music; he gave her lyrics printed on paper with no chord charts, then showed her the map of California and timed out every syllable as it relates to miles per hour. She tried to sing it at a normal pace and couldn't reach Phoenix before sunrise — so she sang it at 167 mph (the speed limit) because that was the only way the math worked. That alone is songwriting genius; his entire career built around lyrical puzzles, from Moby Dick setting off San Francisco radio station WARB in '62 to "San Francisco City Lights" written as an album closer with its iconic finale line ("Goodbye San Francisco"). He's probably one of the great songwriters America has ever produced.
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/singles-albums/a-guy-approached-me-one-night-after-a-concert-he-had-a-map-he-had-all-the-times-and-he-had-a-stopwatch-and-he-showed-me-how-it-was-impossible-the-story-of-how-the-classic-song-by-the-time-i-get-to-phoenix-found-the-right-interpreter
Source: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/singles-albums/a-guy-approached-me-one-night-after-a-concert-he-had-a-map-he-had-all-the-times-and-he-had-a-stopwatch-and-he-showed-me-how-it-was-impossible-the-story-of-how-the-classic-song-by-the-time-i-get-to-phoenix-found-the-right-interpreter