(Credit: Hole Hole / The Traveling Wilburys)
The whole story of the Traveling Wilburys felt like a non-stop party every time they entered the studio.
No one in the band seemed to focus on themselves once they started, and it was easy for them to start singing songs that they could sing together and try to show what made them the biggest legends in the world. But even for a group with so much energy, they would have believed it when they sang songs that were superior to anything else on their list.
But when they started, they didn’t have many situations for both of them to deal with. They all got together for a jam session when they made that first record, and it feels like that listening to every song. It sounds like they’re all laughing when they do ‘Dirty World’ or ‘Last Time’, but even when they go into serious territory like ‘Tweeter and Monkey Man’, they at least have the same feeling they would have if they were jamming on old Carl Perkins records when the cameras weren’t rolling.
If we talk about their legacy, however, it should be limited to that first record. Roy Orbison was instrumental in making The Wilburys what they were, and while their second effort was great, I’d be lying if I said it was as good as it was without Orbison. Bob Dylan has a lot of energy, and there are a lot of songs that don’t sound as good as the band going back and forth on their first effort.
Also, there’s a good chance that nothing would have topped the sheer joy they had in “Handle With Care” before. This was their chance to jam for the first time, and although it was intended to be a B-side for one of Harrison’s albums, he wasn’t going to sit in Dylan’s studio with Roy Orbison sitting next to him and not giving him a line to sing. The Wilburys weren’t the plan at this point, but Harrison already knew he was in for a surprise.
Even before the final song was put down, Harrison couldn’t stop playing it over and over again, saying, “With ‘Handle With Care’ we got the song and got the rhythm guitars down with just a click. Then we needed lyrics. Once we got the title it was off. The lyrics were flying all over the place. We could have had 29 against [sic] that way, it was fun. ”
While it was probably in everyone’s best interests not to turn it into Dylan’s lyrical odyssey, Jeff Lynne felt that one song should be what the Wilburys should be known for, saying, “‘Handle With Care’ was the first one George wrote when we went to Bob’s studio. It was.”
And while Tom Petty and Dylan may not come across as clearly as Harrison and Orbison in the final mix, that doesn’t matter. All that mattered was that they were able to put their best foot forward, and even in the days when ‘supergroup’ became a dirty word, there was no other group that had the same kind of internal chemistry that they did whenever they broke out on acoustic guitars.
Above all, ‘Take Care’ is the kind of song that embodies everything a true band should be. Anyone can throw their favorite artists in a room and hope for the best, but the reason this one works is that you can hear them all having the time of their lives every time they start playing.
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