{"id":1011899,"date":"2026-06-07T21:14:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011899\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T21:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T21:14:18","slug":"the-silly-1991-traveling-wilburys-song-only-meant-to-be-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1011899\/","title":{"rendered":"The “silly” 1991 Traveling Wilburys song only meant to be a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Why<\/p>\n

Credit: Wikimedia<\/p>\n

Sun 7 June 2026 20:15, UK <\/p>\n

The idea of the Traveling Wilburys<\/a> feels almost too perfect to actually exist. <\/p>\n

Getting that many legends in one band is the kind of thing that most rock fans talk about in hushed tones but never actually see happen, but when George Harrison had the right idea<\/a>, he was willing to move mountains to have all of his friends together in one group. But even when they were making some of the best songs that any of them had made in decades, that didn\u2019t mean that any of them were taking themselves all that seriously, either.<\/p>\n

The whole point of the band was supposed to have a bunch of friends getting together to hang out, and they did have a little bit of tongue-in-cheek humour when they released that first album. Getting members of Monty Python<\/a> to write the liner notes for the album was already going to be a bit of a ride when you opened up the record, and even when they credited each other on the album, the made-up story about how all of them were brothers from decades before was a good way of taking the edge off the fact that all of them were stars in their own right.<\/p>\n

But when Roy Orbison passed away, it was bound to be hard to keep the morale up. Orbison was the one that everyone idolised<\/a> to a certain degree, but even if he was no longer around, Harrison wasn\u2019t willing to give up. He wanted to make the best record that he could to keep playing with his friends, but it\u2019s not like Vol III is anywhere close to the lightning-in-a-bottle energy of their debut.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a complete dud by any means, but when you look at the kind of music that each of them had been making in their solo careers, this was clearly meant to be a bit of fun. There are still some great tracks on there like \u2018She\u2019s My Baby\u2019<\/a> and \u2018Inside Out\u2019, but you can tell by the sound of everything that they wanted to make something a little looser. And for Petty, that meant writing some of the goofiest lyrics that any of them had ever made.<\/p>\n

Granted, most of their songs were about simple topics every time they wrote. Nothing on that first album could be considered too deep by any means, but even if a song like \u2018Dirty World\u2019 was a bit of a laugh<\/a>, \u2018Wilbury Twist\u2019 was the kind of skiffle-style song that would have served as the perfect party jam circa 1957 or some sort of dance routine that you\u2019d see in a second-rate family comedy.<\/p>\n

And Petty wouldn\u2019t necessarily disagree with that assessment, either, saying<\/a>, \u201cThe first verse was me just trying to make George and Jeff laugh. And I don\u2019t know where the idea for a twist song came from, and maybe that was George. And then he got carried away with that song and it really got pretty funny. Even had a chart made up, a dance chart. It was silly. And we liked things to be silly.\u201d It might have been a joke, but the band didn\u2019t need to go as hard as they did on the backing track.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aside from the absolutely gorgeous saxophone line, the electric guitars are incredibly hot in the mix, almost like Harrison saved all of his guitar hero moments for the very final track on their last album. It\u2019s not like they weren\u2019t playing into the joke of the song when they made the video, either, going so far as to have John Candy star in it and make a lot of the mock dance moves that Petty is singing about.<\/p>\n

\u2018Wilbury Twist\u2019 isn\u2019t necessarily the most intelligent rock and roll song ever made, but considering the band would never make another record again, having this be their final bow is actually a lot more appropriate than anything else they made. Because at the end of the day, all of them wanted to have fun, and you can feel all of them grinning up their sleeves every single time they trade verses between them.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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