It’s my father’s birthday today, so after thirteen years of “NO FUCKING WILBURYS,” I will keep the promise I made and give him this review, plucked from the “Most Requested and Most Rejected” shitpile. “Lá breithe sona duit, Daddykins!”

My reasons for repeatedly rebuffing his suggestion are shrouded in mystery, especially when you take into account the fact that I like and respect all five Wilburys and have written mostly positive reviews of their work. After I finally agreed to give them a shot, I spent some time in self-reflection and concluded that my resistance involved a combination of timing and stubbornness on my part.

The album came out in 1988 when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I know that Dad must have played the album during that time, but it apparently failed to find a spot in my developing brain. During my teens and early twenties, I spent most of my time listening to contemporary music (Britpop, post-punk, and Radiohead) and never gave a thought to the Traveling Wilburys. After I started the blog and decided to switch to classic reviews, the album was one of a thousand on the list I created with assistance from my parents. After ignoring it for a few years, Dad started bugging me, and after one of his nags, I agreed to sit down with him and listen to the album. I will admit that I entered the listening session believing it would be a waste of time, and filtering my impressions through that lens, I told Dad, “This is just Baby Boomer nostalgia that belongs on an oldies station.” His arguments to the contrary fell on deaf ears.

Well, a promise is a promise, and I knew I had to rid myself of old biases before writing a single word. Having just written a glowing review of Bob Dylan certainly helped, and watching the documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys crushed my assumption that the Wilburys were just another supergroup cashing in on their fame. As Tom Petty put it in the documentary, “It was just a bunch of friends who happened to be really good at making music.” What really turned the trick for me was that the album was loaded with two aspects of music that have taken a back seat in the 21st Century: singable, memorable melodies and vocal harmonies. As Rick Lawrence explained on The Trombone Mentor, “Melody is the expressive center of music—what we remember, what we hum, and what connects us emotionally to a piece.” That connection is strengthened by harmony, adding richness and additional layers of emotion to the music.

I felt those connections all the way through the album, and just like magic, I was transformed from a Wilburys skeptic into a Wilburys fan.

*****

There are many different stories about how the Traveling Wilburys came to be. I counted three different versions on Songfacts, and Amazon reviewer Anne Masterson ran into the same problem when she read Bill Harry’s The George Harrison Encyclopedia. “The book is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccurate information. For example, there are three different stories on how the Traveling Wilburys were formed, depending on whether one reads the Roy Orbison entry, the Tom Petty entry, or the Traveling Wilburys entry.” After further research, I learned that the musicians had different memories of who wrote these lyrics and who played what on a particular song. The most lucid and likely story came from Wikipedia, which also hints at a credible explanation as to why those memories were such a jumble: the birth of the Traveling Wilburys involved more serendipity than most people experience in a lifetime.

“In early April 1988, George Harrison was in Los Angeles and needed to record a B-side for a European 12-inch single. Jeff Lynne was also in Los Angeles writing and producing some tracks for Roy Orbison on his album Mystery Girl (released posthumously), as well as Tom Petty’s first solo album, Full Moon Fever. While having dinner with Lynne and Orbison, Harrison related how he needed to record a new track and wanted to do it the next day. Harrison asked if Lynne would help, and Orbison offered his old friend his hand as well, seeing how fun it would be. Needing a studio at short notice, Harrison called Bob Dylan, who agreed to let them use his garage studio. After dinner, Harrison stopped by Petty’s house to pick up a guitar he had left there, and invited Petty along as well. Gathering at Dylan’s Malibu home the following day, Harrison, Lynne, Orbison and Petty worked on a song that Harrison had started writing for the occasion, “Handle with Care.” At first, Dylan’s role was that of a host, maintaining a barbecue to feed the musicians; at Harrison’s invitation, Dylan then joined them in writing lyrics for the song. The ensemble taped the track on Dylan’s Ampex recording equipment, with all five sharing the vocals.” (Wikipedia)

The Songfacts page for “Handle with Care” claims that “They had such a good time making it and were so impressed with the results, they decided to form a band and include the song on a full album, which they recorded a month later.” Actually, George had been tinkering with the idea for some time, and had discussed the Wilburys concept with Jeff before the impromptu session took place. The others became aware of the idea and embraced it after the undeniable success of their initial collaboration.

George Harrison was the driving force behind the Wilburys, but he may have never conceived of such a thing if he hadn’t taken a lengthy break from recording. The dawn of a new decade was not kind to George. He had begun recording Somewhere in England in March 1980, but when he sent the finished album to the suits at Warner Brothers, they rejected it, arguing it was “too laid back and not sufficiently commercial.” After a couple of months of seething, he resumed recording with Ringo on the drums. A month later, John Lennon was assassinated, likely triggering his own fears that a stalker might make him a target. He recovered well enough to repurpose “All Those Years Ago” as a tribute to Lennon and brought Paul, Linda, and Denny Laine into the studio to add vocals. The song became an unfortunate hit, and the redesigned album did well on the charts. George would have likely thrown in the towel at that point, but he owed Warner one more record. Gone Troppo was panned by the critics, and George refused to promote the album with a tour or any videos, a clear signal that he wanted nothing more to do with music industry bullshit. He explained his reasons for leaving the scene to Far Out Magazine: “Y’know, the record business goes through all kinds of different stages, and last time I made an album, they were so busy getting opinions from people on the side of the street on what’s supposed to be a hit song,” Harrison revealed during the promotion of Cloud Nine. “Y’know, that’s what they tell me: ‘A hit single is love lost or gained between 13-and 21-year-olds.’ Now, what kind of chance does that give me? So I, y’know, I’ll just go gardening for a bit.”

Well, he still had movies to produce at Hand Made Films and made a couple of guest appearances here and there, but George wouldn’t release any new material for five years. When he was ready to give it another shot, he contacted Jeff Lynne and asked him to co-produce Cloud Nine. The album turned out to be a surprise hit, entering the top ten in the U.K, the States, Canada, Norway, and Sweden. The reception rebuilt his confidence and strengthened his determination to do things his way from now on.

With a renewed George Harrison at the center and four top-tier musicians happy to turn his dream into reality, the stars were fully aligned for the Traveling Wilburys.

*****

All songs written by Traveling Wilburys . . . STOP RIGHT THERE! “According to statements by Harrison in the documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys (filmed in 1988 about the making of the album and re-released on the bonus DVD included in The Traveling Wilburys Collection) “the whole band gave various contributions to all songs, although each song was mainly written by a single member; the joint songwriting credit came from the fact that giving individualized credits looked egotistical.” That decision was consistent with their wish to shine the light on the music, not the players. “Rather than releasing the album under their own names, the five musicians hid behind a thin cloak of anonymity, attributing their work to a mythical supergroup and adopting hick personae as part of an elaborate charade that included a bogus biography and a custom record label. The tongue-in-cheek concept was a humorous way of placing the emphasis on the music instead of the big names. Besides offering a witty commentary that mocked the symbols of superstardom, the Wilbury sobriquet served as a sly, preemptive strike against those who might spoil the party and canonize the fun-fest as a Serious Rock Summit.” (Rolling Stone)

It just so happens that The Traveling Wilburys Collection (owned by dear old dad) contains the publishing credits, and those credits identify the main songwriter. I will take advantage of that bit of serendipity and attach the main songwriter’s name to each song.

Side One

“Handle with Care” (Harrison): Caution! More serendipity ahead!

In a 1990 interview for the Dutch television show Countdown, Harrison said that he started writing “Handle with Care” – with a section in mind for Orbison to sing – on the morning of the session. Lynne helped Harrison complete the music for the song when they arrived at Dylan’s house; according to Petty, Harrison had the chord sequence “pretty much” completed beforehand. In another contemporary interview, Harrison recalled that he had the opening line, “Been beat-up and battered around,” but otherwise, the lyrics were the result of a group effort. Harrison asked Dylan, who had been tending a barbecue for the musicians, to ‘Give us some lyrics, you famous lyricist.’ When Dylan asked for a title for the song, Harrison looked around the garage and said, “Handle with Care,” after a label on a box. (Wikipedia)

We can all be grateful that Barbecue Bob was not a neat freak.

The version of the song recorded that day was demo quality at best. Mix Online reported engineer Bill Bottrell’s recollection of the “studio.” “Dylan’s studio was indeed hardly in ‘record-ready’ mode. He had a pile of equipment Dave Stewart had sold him, and it looked to me like it hadn’t really ever been used,” Bottrell says. “It was semi-connected, but it wasn’t working very well, so I had to sort of make it work.” As for the studio, he says, “There was a booth of some sort. But the garage door was still just the garage door.” The instrumentation was minimal, consisting of six-string and twelve-string guitars backed by a drum machine. Despite the limitations, the musicians could sense that the song had strong bones and had a lot of fun in the process. The official release added bass guitar and replaced the drum machine with real drummers, with Lynne covering the basic beat and Ian Wallace adding tom-toms. George plays his Rickenbacker-12 and adds gorgeous bits of slide guitar to the mix, and Dylan adds a touch of harmonica, most notable in the fade. The additions and overdubs were recorded at three different studios (including the garage), and the finished product was so strong that Warner abandoned the B-side idea, opening the door for the creation of the Traveling Wilburys.

The arrangement is outstanding and exceedingly enjoyable. The basic structure involves rounds organized in three sections: George takes the verses, Roy takes the first bridge, and the quartet of Dylan-Petty-Lynne-Orbison takes the second bridge. George is in fine voice, and his phrasing is excellent, coming on strong in the first two lines of each verse, then toning it down on the lines devoted to his honey. It’s no wonder that George carved out a role for Orbison, having become one of his most ardent fans when the Beatles toured with him way back in 1963. Needless to say, Roy nails his three lines, confirming his status as the master of capturing the emotion of loneliness in song.

I’m so tired of being lonely
I still have some love to give
Won’t you show me that you really care?

Following Orbison is virtually impossible, but the quartet manages to pull it off by avoiding any thoughts of competition and delivering solid harmonies over Dylan’s rough textures. I have no doubt whatsoever that the composer of “Lay Lady Lay” suggested the second line in the bridge:

Everybody’s got somebody to lean on
Put your body next to mine, and dream on

My initial impression of the lyrics was that the song was about George’s need for loving comfort after experiencing the downsides of fame—and who would be more qualified to take on that subject than a Beatle? It wasn’t until I learned that Tom Petty suggested the sardonic line, “Oh, the sweet smell of success,” that I realized that all of the Wilburys had paid the price of fame in one form or another, as revealed in these verses:

Been beat up and battered ’round
Been sent up, and I’ve been shot down
You’re the best thing that I’ve ever found
Handle me with care

Reputations changeable
Situations tolerable
Baby, you’re adorable
Handle me with care

Been stuck in airports, terrorized
Sent to meetings, hypnotized
Overexposed, commercialized
Handle me with care

I’ve been uptight and made a mess
But I’ll clean it up myself, I guess
Oh, the sweet smell of success
Handle me with care

I felt my resistance to the Wilburys collapsing bit by bit the more I listened to this song, and watching the video with five good friends standing around an ancient microphone doing what they loved to do caused this crybaby to shed tears of joy.

After all the musicians agreed to become Wilburys, they had to come up with enough songs to fill an album—and they were on a tight time frame. “They created their debut album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, over ten days during May 1988, because they had to work around Dylan’s preparation for his ‘Never Ending Tour’ and Orbison’s tour schedule. The ten sessions were held at Dave Stewart’s house. They sat in the kitchen and played acoustic guitars, and the basic tracks were recorded there. They normally recorded vocals after dinner in a different room.” Despite the deadline, the sessions were stress-free and quite enjoyable:

Describing a typical day in the life of the Wilburys, Lynne remembers how the five musicians usually gathered at Dave Stewart’s home studio in Los Angeles and banged out ideas until a complete song resulted from the jamming. “We would arrive about twelve or one o’clock and have some coffee,” says Lynne. “Somebody would say, ‘What about this?’ and start on a riff. Then we’d all join in, and it’d turn into something. We’d finish around midnight and just sit for a bit while Roy would tell us fabulous stories about Sun Records or hanging out with Elvis. Then we’d come back the next day to work on another one. That’s why the songs are so good and fresh — because they haven’t been second-guessed and dissected and replaced. It’s so tempting to add stuff to a song when you’ve got unlimited time.” (Rolling Stone)

“Dirty World” (Dylan): Another aspect of the album that makes it so enjoyable is the presence of humor in many of the songs. Given that Bob Dylan had a major influence on the lyrics and that the band leader was the man who funded Life of Brian (for which I am eternally grateful) and Time Bandits, it should come as no surprise that some of the humor is a combination of Pythonesque and Dylanesque. George and Jeff commented on the creation in the notes for the song on the Jeff Lynne Song Database:

(George) “And the second one, which is this one called Dirty World— I mean, literally, it was just, y’know… Because Bob’s just very funny. I mean, a lot of people take him seriously and I and if you know Dylan and his songs, he’s such a joker, really. And he just sat down and we said, ‘Okay, what we gonna do?’ And Bob said, ‘Let’s do one like Prince!’ [laughs] And he just started banging away, ‘Love your sexy body. Ooh, baby.’ And it just turned, you know, like into that tune. It sounds nothing like Prince, really . . . But that track, I mean, I love that track. It’s just so funny, really . . . we decided to do this thing about ‘he loves your– he loves your–‘  I don’t know how other people write songs, but that bit… I mean, I just picked up a bunch of magazines and gave everybody a magazine. And Roy Orbison had Vogue magazine or something like that. I had some copies of Auto Sport which I think I gave to Bob Dylan. And then we just started reading out things like ‘five speed gear box’ and stuff like that . . . And then we reduced it down to about twelve ones that sounded interesting. We just wrote this random list and had it on the microphone. And then we just did the take. And whoever sang first sang the first one. And then we just sang ’round the group until we’d done ’em all.”

(Jeff) “We had a list. Every time it came ’round to Roy Orbison, he always got the ‘Trembling Wilbury.’ And it was just the funniest thing. Roy’s got the big, operatic [sings] ‘Trembling Wilbury.’ And we always collapsed every time. And no matter how we rearranged it, he always ended up with ‘Trembling Wilbury’ on the end. ” Jeff Lynne (February 10, 1990 – Classic Albums radio interview by Roger Scott).

The song is split into two parts, with Dylan’s euphemistic verses setting the tone:

He loves your sexy body, he loves your dirty mind
He loves when you hold him when you grab him from behind
Oh baby, you’re such a pretty thing
I can’t wait to introduce you to the other members of my gang

You don’t need no wax job, you’re smooth enough for me
If you need your oil changed I’ll do it for you free
Oh baby, the pleasure would be all mine
If you let me drive your pickup truck and park it where the sun don’t shine

Every time he touches you his hair stands up on end
His legs begin to quiver and his mind begins to bend
Oh baby, you’re such a tasty treat
But I’m under doctor’s orders, I’m afraid to overeat

Okay! So we’ve got cock-grabbing, gangbanging, and plenty of cunnilingus. I’m not offended by the gangbanging because this chick seems up for it, and I love Bob’s defense of women who refuse to get a bikini wax and keep their pubic hair. Pubes are the best place to spray your perfume if your partner is an oral sex aficionado.

The closing verse veers away from naughtiness as the girl chooses to abandon the horny bastard, making room for the absurdist Pythonesque “chorus”:

He loves your . . . Electric dumplings . . . Red bell peppers . . . Fuel injection . . . Service charge . . . Five-speed gearbox . . . Long endurance . . . Quest for junk food . . . Big refrigerator . . . Trembling Wilbury . . . Marble earrings . . . Porky curtains . . . Power steering . . . Bottled water . . . Parts and service

Hormel Spam would have strengthened the Python vibes, but I guess they didn’t have a copy of Good Housekeeping lying around. And what the hell are “porky curtains?” Yecch! After a brief pause, we enter the fade, with Jim Horn adding saxophone during the final overdubs and mixing sessions in George’s FPSHOT home studio. The fade also contains the closing line, “Dirty world, a dirty world, it’s a . . . ing dirty world,” and believe it or not, I was delighted that they didn’t use the F-word that appears in nearly all of my reviews, as it would have ruined the wackiness of the magazine excerpts.

The important thing is everyone played along with the gag and had a great time—and I did, too.

“Rattled” (Lynne): The scene in the documentary that had me in stitches featured Jim Keltner, aka Buster Sidebury, making a major contribution to the art of percussion:

The drummer on the track, Jim Keltner, was also recorded playing the shelves and contents of a refrigerator. “Jim started playing shelves, and it sounded great; it sounded just like old springs. It sounded really good, it suited the track really well. Nothing was off-limits in any way. It was the opportunity to create sounds that you’d never have got before . . . The sound I think is so close to a good old rock ‘n’ roll thing from, like, the late ’50s. But that partially is, I think, the guitars, acoustics. And the fridge. I tell you, it’s the great new sound, folks! It’s happening.” (The Beatles Bible, quotes attributed to Harrison).

“Last Night” (Petty): As y’all know, I get irked when people who are paid to review music don’t take the time to get their facts straight. The Songfacts entry claims this was the song with the refrigerated percussion, but we know that Jim Keltner said it was “Rattled.” The site Oldies But Goodies opens its take on “Last Night” with this piece of nonsense: “The song opens with a gentle strum of the acoustic guitar (no, it doesn’t), setting the stage for Dylan’s weathered yet expressive vocals.” Shit, if you can’t tell the difference between Bob Dylan’s voice and Tom Petty’s, you’re in the wrong line of business.

The lead vocals are split between Petty and Orbison, with Petty taking the major key verses and Orbison handling the more emotion-laden lyrics in the minor key bridges. The chorus (“Last night, thinkin’ about last night”) features multi-part harmonies and is repeated several times because the poor sap who got taken for a ride is still trying to get his head around the evening’s events. Despite the Songfacts complaint that the lyrics “rhyme like pre-schoolers,” the story is well-told and full of twists and turns. (Note: Orbison’s contributions in italics).

She was there at the bar
She heard my guitar
She was long and tall
She was the queen of them all

She was dark and discreet
She was light on her feet
We went up to her room
And she lowered the boom

Down below
They danced and sang in the street
While up above
The walls were steaming with heat

I was feeling no pain
Feeling good in my brain
I looked in her eyes
They were full of surprise

I asked her to marry me
She smiled and pulled out a knife
“The party’s just beginning, ” she said
“Your money or your life”

Some interpreters claim that the story is morbid, traumatic, and devastating, which tells me that they have difficulty recognizing black humor. The sprightly Latin feel of the song and Tom’s closing shoulder shrug contradict any claims that the poor sap needed to see a therapist.

Now I’m back at the bar
She went a little too far
She done me wrong
All I got is this song

And it’s one helluva song.

“Not Alone Any More” (Lynne):

“Orbison’s big moment came on ‘Not Alone Any More,’ a song that inspired and rewrote his singular history. ‘We wanted to write one specifically for Roy,’ said Petty. ‘George said to Roy, ‘You’re known as the lonely guy from ‘Only The Lonely’. What if you had one where you’re not alone anymore?’ That’s where Not Alone Any More came from.’ While Orbison himself said he ‘put all I had into the project,’ he was aware that ‘the other guys had visions of what I should sound like or what I should sing. So we didn’t question each other– we just went right ahead.'”

“Yet even after they had nailed “Not Alone Any More,” Lynne felt the song needed something else, some missing ingredient that would define it as a quintessential Orbison song, so he quietly put in some extra hours. ‘One night I broke into the studio to try some alternative chord pattern, because that was one particular song I just couldn’t come to terms with the way it was. And I just put this Telecaster on and found this other chord pattern and pulled out all the other stuff. Everybody else arrived, and here it was this new thing—the same tune, but just different chords. They all loved it.’ For Lynne, ‘Not Alone Any More’ was the realisation of a dream he’d harboured as a young boy growing up in Birmingham. ‘It was just a thrill to write a song with Roy Orbison. It was an ambition I’d always had, and it came true– which was great.'” (David Burke (2017 – Vintage Rock Presents Roy Orbison Collectors Edition) via the Jeff Lynne Song Database.)

The original composition consisted of three chords; Jeff’s remake consisted of nine. Because the original chords were described as “simple beyond belief” (like many songs on the album) and in the key of D major, it’s likely the initial verse pattern was D-Bm-A, a chord progression compatible with the melody but lacking build. Jeff changed the verse pattern to D-Bm-F#m-G-A to fix the build problem, then made the chorus much more interesting with two rounds of Dmaj7-F#m-G followed by an expanded pattern of Dmaj7-F#m-G-A-Bm. Jeff then brought this baby home with a sequence of G-Asus4-D-C-D-C. The reworked chord progression not only fit beautifully with the melody but also enhanced the melancholy of the background vocals with the Dmaj7-F#m pairing on the “not alone” lines that introduce the first three lines of the chorus.

Jeff added several enhancements to the final mix (piano, synth, guitar) to give the piece more grandeur, fortunate to be working with a singer who always rose above the arrangement. Roy Orbison has blown me away many times, but this ranks up there with “Only the Lonely” as one of his greatest vocal performances, demonstrating that he still had his amazing range and plenty of emotive power in his interpretations. Several reviewers have identified “Not Along Any More” as the “standout track,” and I can’t disagree with them. “For many listeners, ‘Not Alone Any More’ was the crowning glory of Vol. 1. It certainly reaffirmed the greatness of the voice of the ‘Big O,’ and was Jeff Lynne’s best composition since the heyday of ELO.” (ibid) Knowing that this was one of the last recordings he ever made fills me with contradictory feelings of loss and delight that Roy Orbison went out a winner, surrounded by good friends who cherished his presence and his unbelievable talent.

Side Two

“Congratulations” (Dylan): Okay, you can call me a heartless bitch if you want, but I started laughing during the first verse. I immediately interpreted Dylan’s lyrics as “the truth shall set you free,” and the gloomy voices repeating the word “congratulations”  before each of his verse lines sounded like pallbearers at a funeral forced to carry the coffin of someone they couldn’t stand. Three reviewers from AllMusic commented on the song, and only Oliver Trager got it right: “At first glance, ‘Congratulations’ comes off as one of the Wilburys’ bleaker songs—until the humor is heard, that is. A repeated listen or two reveals a composition in which the narrator seems to be actually telling the person he’s congratulating to screw off.” Stephen Erlewine dismissed it as an “offhand heartbreak tune,” and Matthew Greenwald’s take was just plain fucking weird: “A slow but emotionally charged series of chord changes drives ‘Congratulations,’ the opening song on side two of The Traveling Wilburys. Although it’s a sad song about the disintegration of a romance, there is a sense of humor here, and this removes the stigma of the heavy expectations that the group no doubt faced during their formation.”

Emotionally charged chords? The chords are C, F, and G, and the only variation is a single D minor. Heavy expectations? Every member of the group remembered the experience as relaxed and a whole lot of fun, and how could there have been expectations if no one outside of the group knew about the project? Stigma, my ass! The funereal feel of the song comes from the slow and steady beat, not the three chords that nearly every wannabe guitarist learns in lesson # 1.

It’s largely the bitter breakup lyrics that make me laugh, in large part due to Dylan’s sardonic delivery:

Congratulations for bringing me down
Congratulations, now I’m sorrow bound
Congratulations, you got a good deal
Congratulations, how good you must feel

Congratulations for making me wait
Congratulations, now it’s too late
Congratulations, you came out on top
Congratulations, you never did know when to stop

I will admit that there are sad moments in the song. The opening passage is marked by George’s mournful guitar, and the sadness is particularly noticeable in the bridges, the first enhanced with close-to-angelic background vocals, and the second with orchestral synth:

This morning I looked out my window and found
A bluebird singing, but there was no one around
At night, I lay alone in my bed
With an image of you goin’ around in my head

I guess that I must have loved you more than I ever knew
My world is empty now ’cause it don’t have you
And if I had just one more chance to win your heart again
I would do things differently, but what’s the use to pretend?

Exactly. He knows he’s been screwed, and it’s time to move on.

The fade is somewhat melancholy, with more lovely guitar from George, tasteful orchestral synth and those semi-angelic wordless vocals . . . but I still leave the song with a smile on my face.

“Heading for the Light” (Harrison): You can find the consensus interpretation of this song on its Wikipedia page, along with a comment from a theologian, but here’s the gist of the matter: “The lyrics convey the singer’s return to a sure path after a period of confusion and doubt. In the interpretation of some Harrison biographers, ‘Heading for the Light’ reflects his rediscovery of his spiritual purpose and reconnection with his deity.”

There is some truth in that statement, but George Harrison was never an I-me-me-mine kind of guy, and there is no specific reference to a deity. The lyrics apply to anyone (which means everyone) who has gone through one of life’s rough passages and finally figures out a way to get back on track. When you’ve lost your compass, you feel stuck in place and keep doing the same things that led to the mess you’re in. George’s journey is really everyone’s journey.

I’ve wandered around with nothing more than time on my hands
I was lost in the night with no sight of you
And at times it was so blue and lonely
Heading for the light

Been close to the edge, hanging by my fingernails
I’ve rolled and I’ve tumbled through the roses and the thorns
And I couldn’t see the sun that warmed me
Heading for the light

(Bridge) Oh, I didn’t see that big black cloud hanging over me
And when the rain came down, I was nearly drowned
I didn’t know the mess I was in

Shoes are wearing out from walking down this same highway
I don’t see nothing new, but I feel a lot of change
And I get the strangest feeling as I’m
Heading for the light

That was me before Alicia came into my life. I’m sure that many people can recall a chapter in their lives when nothing seemed to be going their way before a ray of hope comes out of nowhere to lead you to the light. I only wish that everyone could experience George’s happy ending:

I see the sun ahead, I ain’t never looking back
All the dreams are coming true as I think of you
Now there’s nothing in the way to stop me
Heading for the light

The music is upbeat and celebratory,  even in the darker verses. The rat-a-tat guitar parts convey delightful determination, and when Jeff Lynne enters to harmonize with George in the bridges, it brings up memories of the Beatles at their best. Jim Horn’s hot sax solos enhance the song’s forward movement, and Jim Keltner steps away from the fridge to deliver a solid performance on the kit. Employing a fake ending was a great idea, allowing the boys to confirm the song’s innate optimism.

“Margarita” (Petty): Some people love this track; others hate it. I admit that I was completely turned off by the oh-fuck-it’s-the-80s intro, settled down a bit when the acoustic guitars took over, felt a little better when Dylan sang his few lyrics, then finally realized that the Wilburys weren’t taking the song seriously, so why should I? It’s good for a laugh, but I’ll let the boys have their fun and move on to the next track.

“Tweeter and the Monkey Man” (Dylan): The song’s several references to Bruce Springsteen songs threw the music press into a tizzy as they smelled a rivalry that gossip-loving music fans would devour and boost their sales figures. Tom Petty threw cold water on that notion:

According to Tom Petty, who co-wrote ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man” with Dylan, it was—as best he could tell—a light-hearted undertaking. “Yeah, it was not meant to mock [Springsteen] at all,” Petty told Rolling Stone in 2013.

Continuing, he added: “It started with Bob Dylan saying, ‘I want to write a song about a guy named Tweeter. And it needs somebody else.’ I said, ‘The Monkey Man’. And he says, ‘Perfect, Tweeter and the Monkey Man’. And he said, ‘Okay, I want to write the story and I want to set it in New Jersey.’ I was like, ‘Okay, New Jersey.’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, we could use references to Bruce Springsteen titles.’ He clearly meant it as praise. We weren’t trying to knock anybody, and there’s not much of it in there anyway.” (Andrew Clayman, “‘Tweeter And The Monkey Man’: The story of the Bob Dylan song that pokes fun at Bruce Springsteen.”(Far Out Magazine).

That article was written thirty-seven years after the fact, and Clayman still refused to let the controversy go to waste. “Petty’s defence of the song here does leave out one critical point: why did Bob Dylan want to write a song set in New Jersey with a bunch of Springsteen references? While Petty chose to believe it was ‘meant as praise,’ no one could ever claim to fully understand the inner workings of Robert Zimmerman’s mind or his motivations on any given day. For what it’s worth, both Springsteen and Dylan have spoken fondly of one another as ‘friends’ in recent years, but friends are just as likely as anyone to poke a little fun at each other, sometimes in private, sometimes on a supergroup album recorded alongside George Harrison and Roy Orbison.”

Hey, Mr. Clayman! WHO GIVES A SHIT?

The real story is far more interesting than the side story. This is Bob Dylan exploring society’s dark underbelly, contrasting the outcasts who have no respect for societal rules with a guy determined to uphold law and order. Bob’s mastery of character development is on full display here, and the song is chock full of surprising revelations. It all begins with a business transaction . . .

Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash
They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash
To an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan
For reasons unexplained she loved the Monkey Man

We’ll learn more about the Jan-Monkey Man thing in a moment, but Bob chose to leave us hanging while he paints a character sketch of Tweeter.

Tweeter was a Boy Scout ‘fore she went to Vietnam
And found out the hard way, nobody gives a damn
They knew that they found freedom just across the Jersey line
So they hopped into a stolen car, took Highway 99

No, the “she” is not a typo. Tweeter is transgender, qualifying her as a double-outcast in this “mixed-up-muddled-up-shook-up world.” Further confirmation of that status comes a few verses down the road. Bob then turns things over to his mates to deliver the chorus, where a bit of foreshadowing tells us the story is not likely to end well:

And the walls came down
All the way to hell
Never saw them when they’re standing
Never saw them when they fell

Continuing to bombard us with surprises, Dylan tells us that the undercover cop must have been wearing a disguise, as he’d known the Monkey Man since they were kids. We also learn and his sister became a bad girl very early in life, and a likely shotgun marriage didn’t change her one bit.

The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man
Even back in childhood he wanted to see him in the can
Jan got married at fourteen to a racketeer named Bill
She made secret calls to the Monkey Man from a mansion on the hill

It would seem that Bob Dylan should be credited as the inventor of the avant-garde soap opera.

The rest of the narrative describes the undercover cop’s dogged pursuit of his prey (he fails twice), and I’m not exactly sure how the story ends.

Some place by Rahwey Prison they ran out of gas
The undercover cop had cornered them, said
“Boy, you didn’t think this could last?”
Jan jumped out of bed, said, “There’s someplace I gotta go”
She took the gun out of the drawer, said, “It’s best that you don’t know.”

The undercover cop was found face down in a field
The Monkey Man was on the river bridge, using Tweeter as a shield
Jan said to the Monkey Man, “I’m not fooled by Tweeter’s curl
I knew him long before he became a Jersey Girl.”

The only way Jan could have known what was happening is that both she and the Monkey Man had those bulky cellphones of the 80s—which makes sense given that she would have been careful not to use the home phone to communicate with her secret lover and have her hubby find out by checking the phone bill. We’ll never know who shot her brother or if Jan took aim at Tweeter and the Monkey Man. Dylan ends the piece with someone trying to process all that happened, but I bet that the narrator is the Monkey Man, who thinks of no one but himself.

Now the town of Jersey City is quieting down again
I’m sitting in a gambling club called the Lion’s Den
The TV set was blown up, every bit of it is gone
Ever since the nightly news showed that the Monkey Man was on

I guess I’ll go to Florida and get myself some sun
There ain’t no more opportunity here, everything’s been done
Sometimes I think of Tweeter, sometimes I think of Jan
Sometimes I don’t think about nothing but the Monkey Man

The arrangement is solid, set to a steady beat in the key of A minor with an acoustic guitar background spiced with George’s dobro and a few synth shots from Jeff that deepen the sense of mystery. Bob receives most of the attention, varying his delivery from incredulous to matter-of-fact while always making sure that listeners can understand every single word.

“End of the Line”(Harrison): What a wonderful way to end an album that celebrates the art of collaboration!

I’ve made it very clear that I am a shitty guitarist, but what I haven’t told you is that while I can run through the score of a symphony with ease, guitar tabs confuse the hell out of me. I mention this because I love the acoustic guitar pattern that opens the song so much that I decided to head over to Ultimate Guitar and give it a shot. It took about an hour for me to get it right—and I cheated a little by watching George play the pattern in the video—but I finally managed to traverse the frets that stretch from 2 to 15. Yay for me!

This song brings back happy memories of singalongs with the Irish side of the family, and the vibes on “End of the Line” are pretty damned close to familial. Everyone except Bob gets a turn as lead vocalist, and all happily contribute to the variations of the chorus, while Tom Petty sings all the verses in the role of everyman. After the bright opening, the chord pattern settles into a simple three-chord pattern of D-A-G, chords that even a rookie guitarist can play and feel part of the family. The lyrics change from chorus to chorus and form a philosophy on how to live a happy, meaningful life.

Well, it’s all right riding around in the breeze
Well, it’s all right if you live the life you please
Well, it’s all right doing the best you can
Well, it’s all right as long as you lend a hand

Well, it’s all right even if they say you’re wrong
Well, it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well, it’s all right as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well, it’s all right, every day is Judgment Day

Well, it’s all right even when push comes to shove
Well, it’s all right if you got someone to love
Well, it’s all right, everything’ll work out fine
Well, it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line

The next-to-last rendition buries the “Hope I die before I get old” nonsense.

Well, it’s all right even if you’re old and gray
Well, it’s all right, you still got something to say
Well, it’s all right, remember to live and let live
Well, it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive

Well, it’s all right (all right), riding around on the breeze
Well, it’s all right (all right), if you live the life you please
Well, it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine
Well, it’s all right (all right), we’re going to the end of the line

Petty’s the-guy-next-door approach in the verses conveys the message that it’s okay to be unattached in defiance of any norms that force you to get married before you’re ready—especially if your prospective partner doesn’t exactly share your values.

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring (at the end of the line)
Waiting for someone to tell you everything (at the end of the line, of the line)
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring (at the end of the line)
Maybe a diamond ring

Maybe somewhere down the road aways (at the end of the line)
You’ll think of me and wonder where I am these days (at the end of the line, of the line)
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays (at the end of the line)
Purple haze

Don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive (at the end of the line)
I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive (at the end of the line, of the line)
It don’t matter if you’re by my side (at the end of the line)
I’m satisfied

The only sad part of the song’s story is that Roy Orbison died before they made the video. When his vocal part is played during the film, the camera shifts to a picture of a chair, empty except for his picture and his guitar. The reaction of two of his friends is captured in the documentary, telling us just how much they loved and admired him:

Tom: “Roy went out on top, and I’m sure he knew that. The last conversation I had with him was a couple of days before he died on the phone, and he was just so thrilled that the Wilburys had gone platinum and he was just going ‘ended great, it’s great.’ We all felt that Roy was a real special part of the group and was just our ace in the hole to have that voice come in. And he was so nice, you know, and it was so painful when he died.”

George: “Roy would have liked us to continue to do ‘The End of the Line.’ You know it’s very optimistic and I mean we love Roy and life flows on within you and without you, and he’s around, you know, in his astral body, and he’ll be cool.”

I have self-prescribed “End of the Line” as a remedy for pessimism, with instructions to play it every morning with my coffee and cigarette.

*****

I will conclude this review with three comments from the participants: George Harrison, Tom Petty (from the documentary), and yours truly.

George: “From my point of view, I just tried to preserve our relationship. I worked so hard to make sure that, you know, all the guys who were in that band and consequently on record and film, that friendship wasn’t abused . . . That was the underlying contribution; I think that’s what I was trying to do.”

Tom: “The whole experience was just some of the best days of my life, and I think it probably was for us all.”

ARC: “I feel like I’ve rid myself of the last vestiges of adolescence and am very sorry that it took me so long to get my head out of my ass. The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 will now appear on my Iconic Albums list as one of my all-time favorites.”

Note: I’ll be heading over to Quebec for a much-needed vacation, so there will be no review next week. I might do a Chick Riff if I have the time (and something to say). I’ll be back with another review on July 26th unless Voldemort decides to invade Greenland and they close the airspace between Canada and Ireland.