The best rock song the Traveling Wilburys ever made: “So close”
What did we do to deserve getting a band like the Traveling Wilburys?
This kind of musical supergroup doesn’t come together, and it feels like some glitch in the matrix that they were able to somehow find the time to get everyone together to make an album of tunes. I guess if you’re one of the Beatles, you have that kind of supernatural power, but George Harrison knew when he was more suited to take a back seat on some of their songs when he had genuine geniuses next to him.
Then again, there was never any sense of ego that came with being a Wilbury, either. The whole point for Harrison was to have a bunch of friends to hang out and play guitar with for a laugh, but the fact that he was able to pull in someone like Roy Orbison was the kind of magic that even managed to shock him. This was bound to be an incredible project from the word go, but when you listen to a lot of the greatest songs from the record, it’s not exactly meant to be one of the heaviest outings ever created.
The whole thing feels like a love letter to the kind of songwriting that Harrison grew up listening to, and it’s not like every single line was meant to be some earth-shattering revelation by any stretch. Bob Dylan did have a few aces up his sleeve when working on the record, but when you listen to a tune like ‘Last Nite’, an entire evening about some guy trying to seduce a girl and then getting robbed at knifepoint feels more like something that’s pulled out of a second-rate comedy based on how it’s played.
In fact, most of the songs on this record have that kind of jokey demeanour about them. They aren’t looking to make a bunch of parodies or anything, but the fact that they managed to get more skiffle-style songs onto the radio in the late 1980s feels like a novelty more than anything. And out of every tune that they were working on on that first album, Jeff Lynne ended up taking home the best rock and roll song in Harrison’s mind.
‘Rattled’ was never meant to be this brash rock and roll tune, but Harrison felt that it had all the elements of what a Wilburys-style rock and roll song was supposed to have, saying, “That track… the sound, I think, is just so close to a good old rock ‘n’ roll thing from the late Fifties. But partially, I think the guitars, acoustics and the refrigerator.” The tune is inherently goofy with Jim Keltner playing the fridge for percussion, but there’s a charm radiating off of this song that’s impossible to deny.
The whole thing is meant to be the kind of simple one-chord style vamp that so many skiffle bands were doing at the time, and the tune at least gets the most out of its premise. Lynne is in fine form behind the mic, and even though Orbison only had one major solo song to his name across the entire project, hearing him incorporate his signature growls into this tune is a nice way of making the best of his talents.
And while Tom Petty had more than his fair share of great rockers, Lynne really was the best person to sing this tune. The Wilburys had already taken turns seeing whose voice suited every tune, and since Lynne had already proven himself to be more than a capable rock and roll vocalist, this feels like what a tune like ‘Rockaria’ or ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ would have sounded like if it were stripped down and given a Bo Diddley beat.
The whole thing is as simple as it gets, but none of the Wilburys was used to doing anything too flashy. They were making the best rock and roll they could in only ten days before Dylan had to leave, and for a few days’ work, this is the kind of mindless rock and roll jam that feels almost too perfect for them.
