Even by the standards of a supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys had enough star power to illuminate the night sky. None of them could be considered anything less than a legend in their time, and when they came together for their two albums in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they created some of the greatest middle-aged rock and roll ever conceived. As much as people liked the idea of everyone working together, there were still a few artists in the band that shined above the rest.
For anyone remotely interested in the early days of rock and roll, though, this was a dream-scenario brand of band. George Harrison had effectively retired as a musician throughout most of the 1980s, but having his comeback album Cloud Nine be rounded out with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty for a follow-up was a band for the ages.
Most importantly, the whole thing was meant to be a joint effort. Regardless of how many times one of them could turn on their star power and claim not to want to take orders from anyone, each of them knew to check their ego at the door and sing what was best for the song instead of letting their heads get in the way of things.
That also applied to songwriting. Throughout their entire discography, every member had a hand in the writing process, including one particular scene in one of their documentaries where Harrison talks about the description of the woman in the song ‘Last Night’ being “short and fat” before waving away the comparison.
Then again, everyone knew how to play to each other’s strengths in the group, and that meant relinquishing lyrical duties to those who actually had something to say. Even though every band member appreciated the group effort, it was clear that they already had a lyrical genius sitting among their ranks before they even started.
So, who wrote the most songs in Traveling Wilburys?
For all of the democratic posturing that came with the supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys were always Harrison’s band. He was the one who hatched the idea, and even when he wasn’t writing the songs, his contributions with the perfect lead line or throwing in some wild sitar part were what helped tie the song together most of the time. If we’re judging who took the lead on most of the tunes and helped give the right lyrical push, if only for a single verse, Bob Dylan stood alone among everyone else.
While the group wrote only 22 songs, Dylan’s vocals are on 12 of them, which means that he probably wrote everything he sang for himself. And it’s not hard to see where his lyrical gems stand out, either. On a track like ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’, his send-up of Bruce Springsteen’s songwriting style has that sardonic sense of humour that Dylan always thrived on in his early days.
And while some of his lyrics can be a bit scattershot and strange when it comes to the psychedelic imagery of ‘Inside Out’, it never seemed out of place compared to the other bonkers lines that came out of a track like ‘Dirty World’, for example. If anything, Dylan had spent years making gospel music for the masses, and hearing him get back in touch with rock and roll was half why his songs worked so well in the context of the Wilburys. There was no pressure here, so it was time for all of them to have some fun.
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