Credit: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys
Sat 15 August 2026 20:30, UK
The Traveling Wilburys were never ones to dwell on the heavy side of life all that often.
The biggest songs of their career were all about having fun, and even when Roy Orbison passed away, George Harrison always seemed happy to be making the kind of tunes that could lift people’s spirits every single time he made a record. But as much as there were good times flowing every single time they put a song together, there were a few times when they couldn’t ignore some of their heroes that had fallen before them.
But it’s a bit more difficult when some of the biggest names in music are already in the band with you. Every member of the band was practically rock and roll royalty, and there’s a good chance that every single one of them was pinching themselves every single day at the idea of working with people like Bob Dylan and Harrison every single day. Then again, it’s not like the Wilbury mentality stopped at those five people.
Harrison figured that many people could have been Wilburys if they had had the time, and he would have gladly welcomed a few people if they had had the chance. No one was going to be brought in to replace Orbison by any stretch, but if they could find the time to jam alongside Roger McGuinn or have Gary Moore lay down some mean guitar licks on one of their tunes, that was good enough for all of them to still be happy with.
There was even the idea of getting the voice of Elvis Presley to join them for a handful of tunes, but there was no intention of the band ever getting anyone new when they made their second album. They wanted to finish the record off as a four-piece out of respect to Orbison, but since Del Shannon ended up passing away around the same time, they figured that they would record a cover version of his signature hit ‘Runaway’ to pay tribute to him.
Shannon was a contemporary of Harrison’s for a while, but the thought of Lynne and Tom Petty working with him was like a dream come true. The relationship between Petty and Shannon did get a little bit rocky sometimes after he ended up stealing his bassist for the Heartbreakers, but aside from name-checking him in ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’, the cover version of ‘Runaway’ was their subtle way of giving a tip of the hat to the person who helped them get interested in rock and roll.
And for Lynne, getting the chance to make the song exactly like his idol was one of the greatest moments he had with the Wilburys, saying, “We actually also did, which was very interesting, was Runaway, y’know, Del Shannon’s tune. Y’know, it was like a… just a tribute, really. It was just like a… I just thought Del would have approved. ‘Cause I loved Del. He was a great guy. And, uh, very sad loss, that is.”
Further reading: From The Vault
The only tragic part of the song was that it ended up being one of the final things that the band ever recorded. While it wasn’t featured on either of their two main albums, it does feel like a small artefact that they had done for fun right before they all got back to their own solo projects over the next few years.
The whole idea of making the Wilburys in the first place felt like a dream that the band members were living every single day, so getting the chance to work on songs that helped teach them rock and roll was like them coming full circle. They had spent years trying to reach the top of the charts, and now that the charts didn’t matter anymore, all that they could do was make a handful of tunes for fun.
