(Credits: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys)
Sun 29 March 2026 20:00, UK
The entire story of the Traveling Wilburys sounded like a nonstop party every time they entered the studio.
No one in the band seemed to have too much of an ego about themselves once they got started, and it was much easier for them to start working on tunes that they could sing along with than try to showcase what made them the greatest musical legends in the world. But even for a band with that much star power, even they could have admitted when they had made tunes that were well above anything else in their catalogue.
But when they first began, they didn’t really have much of a standard to work with either way. They were all getting together for a jam session when they made that first record, and it definitely feels that way listening to every song. They sound like they are all having a laugh when making ‘Dirty World’ or ‘Last Nite’, but even when they go into more serious territory like on ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’, they still at least have the same kind of attitude that they would have had if they were jamming along to old Carl Perkins records when the cameras weren’t rolling.
If we’re talking about their legacy, though, it should really be confined to that first record. Roy Orbison was such an integral part in making the WIlburys what they were, and while their sophomore effort was pretty good, I’d be lying if I said that it was every bit as good as they were without Orbison. Bob Dylan is far too dominant, and there are more than a few tunes that don’t sound nearly as fun as the band going back and forth on their first effort.
Then again, there’s a good chance that nothing could have topped the absolute thrill that they had making ‘Handle With Care’ in the first place. This was their opportunity to jam for the first time, and while it was meant to be a B-side for one of Harrison’s albums, he wasn’t going to sit around in Dylan’s studio with Roy Orbison sitting next to him and not give him a line to sing. The Wilburys weren’t even a project at this point, but Harrison already knew that he had hit on something magical.
Even before the final version of the tune was laid down, Harrison couldn’t stop himself from playing it over and over again, saying, “With ‘Handle With Care’ we got the tune and we put down the rhythm guitars with just a click track. Then we needed the words. I was walking round with a pencil and paper thinking, ‘All these people are such great songwriters, give us some lyrics then!’ Once we got the title it just went off. The lyrics were flying around. We could have had 29 versus [sic] to that tune, it was brilliant.”
While it was probably in everyone’s best interest not to turn it into a Dylan-style lyrical odyssey, Jeff Lynne felt that that one song should be what the Wilburys should be known for, saying, “‘Handle With Care’ was the first one George had half-written when we went over to Bob’s studio. That one, really, contains all of the elements of the Wilburys at their best. On their best behaviour. What a thrill that first one was.”
And while Tom Petty and Dylan might not be coming through as clearly as Harrison and Orbison on the final mix, that doesn’t really matter. All that mattered was them being able to put their best foot forward, and even in an age where ‘supergroup’ became a bit of a dirty word, there was no other band that had the same kind of internal chemistry that they did whenever they broke out the acoustic guitars.
Above all else, ‘Handle With Care’ is the kind of song that encapsulates everything that a true supergroup should be. Anyone else can throw their favourite artists in a room and hope for the best, but the reason why this one works is that you can hear all of them having the time of their lives every single time they start playing.
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