![\"Why](\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/static\/uploads\/1\/2022\/11\/Why-The-Traveling-Wilburys-never-travelled-1140x855.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Even by the standards of a supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys<\/span>\u00a0had 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.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n 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\u00a0Cloud Nine\u00a0<\/em>be rounded out with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty for a follow-up was a band for the ages.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2018Last Night\u2019 being \u201cshort and fat\u201d before waving away the comparison.<\/p>\n Then again, everyone knew how to play to each other\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n For all of the democratic posturing that came with the supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys were always Harrison\u2019s band. He was the one who hatched the idea, and even when he wasn\u2019t 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\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n While the group wrote only 22 songs, Dylan\u2019s vocals are on 12 of them, which means that he probably wrote everything he sang for himself. And it\u2019s not hard to see where his lyrical gems stand out, either. On a track like \u2018Tweeter and the Monkey Man\u2019, his send-up of\u00a0Bruce Springsteen\u2019s\u00a0songwriting style has that sardonic sense of humour that Dylan always thrived on in his early days.<\/p>\n And while some of his lyrics can be a bit scattershot and strange when it comes to the psychedelic imagery of \u2018Inside Out\u2019, it never seemed out of place compared to the other bonkers lines that came out of a track like \u2018Dirty World\u2019, 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.<\/p>\nSo, who wrote the most songs in Traveling Wilburys?<\/h2>\n