(Credit: Wikimedia)
Mon 14 April 2025 13:00, UK
The Traveling Wilburys were normally the last band that anyone would think of as having any animosity towards each other. The entire premise of their getting together was about trying to make the best music that they could as a goof, and when they first hit on ‘Handle With Care’, they knew that the album was going to come easy since they were all on the same creative page. No album sessions can be great forever, though, and half the band knew that they weren’t cut out for certain tunes.
Going through their story, though, George Harrison always seemed to be the true ringleader behind everything. He was the one who first had the idea of forming the group, and since he had been working with Jeff Lynne, he figured that he try to get as many of his musical colleagues as he could into the mix. But, really, being able to play some of the most blistering leads wasn’t normally a qualifier here.
When looking back on those times, Tom Petty remembered that Harrison was more interested in the people behind the songs, saying, “It was more about people that you could hang around with. Though George did like to surround himself with people who were good.” And once he had a handful of the greatest songwriters under one roof, every one of the tunes seemed to have its own unique character.
The electronic soundscapes in ‘Margarita’ certainly changed the pace for Bob Dylan, and hearing them cut loose on the rockabilly number ‘Rattled’ is a nice way of calling back to where all of their roots were. But there was always room for them to grow as lyricists a bit more, and when writing ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’, Dylan had his sights set on what Bruce Springsteen had been doing.
While most artists would tip their hat to their inspirations in song, this feels like both a loving ode and a slight jab all at the same time, considering how much Dylan includes references to songs like ‘Thunder Road’ and talks about the supposed “Jersey girl” that occupies many of ‘The Boss’s tunes. That kind of loving look at American westerns may have been interesting, but it is also something that Harrison and Lynne could have never done on their own.
“The English guys [George Harrison and Jeff Lynne] left, actually. It was the only song that they were like, ‘This is just too American. We’re out on this one.’”
Tom Petty
When talking about putting the session together, Petty remembered that both of them walked out once Petty and Dylan got on a roll, saying, “The English guys [George Harrison and Jeff Lynne] left, actually. It was the only song that they were like, ‘This is just too American. We’re out on this one.’ So the two of us just sat there for most of the afternoon, and then we edited it down the next day.”
But this kind of songwriting disconnect was more about them trying to be realistic as well. Because if we’re being realistic here, asking Harrison to channel his inner cowboy voice and write the kind of tune that Johnny Cash would have sung made about as much sense as Petty talking about the wonders of England in the same vocal tone that Ray Davies did on some of the Kinks’ greatest work.
Every member of the band was a master of their craft, but the fact that they could walk out on each other during songs was practically an artistic strength. There’s a lot of room for people to get their egos involved in a supergroup, but the measure of any good artist is their ability to step back when someone has something better.
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