The first Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne fell in love with: “The best thing I’ve ever heard in my life”
The Traveling Wilburys always went to pains to paint themselves as equals despite their solo megastar statuses. But when you came to unpick that, was it really true?
You might have had to pin each of them up against the wall to elicit the reality, but the answer was probably not. To be fair, as much as they would protest to the contrary, you could see it everywhere in the way they talked, the way they moved, and the way they worshipped a particular individual among them. One man was god, and they knew it.
As it just so happened, Jeff Lynne realised that many years before he would ever fall into the deity’s orbit. He was just 12 or 13 years old, and when his mother and aunt played Roy Orbison’s music in the car, they were head over heels for him. Romance may not have been the way the future ELO frontman would put it himself, but it seemed to be the first warm spark he had ever felt.
“Oh, the first time I ever heard ‘Only The Lonely’ on the radio was… I couldn’t believe it. My mum and my auntie said, ‘Ooh, he’s so sexy, he is!’ I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’” Lynne recalled with a smile about his bandmate in a 2019 interview. It really could have been the making of perhaps the most dysfunctional rom-com of all time.
“Not that I knew anything about it – I was 12 or 13,” he was then quick to offer up. “They’re going, ‘Ooh, but he’s too sexy… I don’t like it.’ And I went, ‘That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’ And it was. Probably still is. Pure magic.” Alas, this was not a Disney film: this was real life. It was just testament to how charming Orbison truly was.
You can only imagine the scenes whenever the pair did finally get to meet. Lynne was starstruck, overjoyed, possibly trying to push down the memory of his mum and aunt, so he didn’t say anything stupid. For Orbison’s part, after everything he’d been through before the Traveling Wilburys landed at his doorstep, he was just happy to be there.
Of course, Lynne had been on hand for Orbison’s big career comeback, but to see him within the ranks of his own band was something different entirely. As he recalled of the recording sessions for the Traveling Wilburys’ first album: “Everybody just sat there going, ‘Wow, it’s Roy Orbison!’. Even though he’s become your pal and you’re hanging out and having a laugh and going to dinner, as soon as he gets behind that [mic] and he’s doing his business, suddenly it’s shudder time.”
Given the tragic ending that would befall Orbison shortly afterwards, it was easy to see why Lynne described the memories as “bittersweet”. This was his friend, his hero, and to a certain extent, his childhood sweetheart all wrapped into one. Saying goodbye would have taken him straight back to being that young kid listening to the radio.
Yet at the same time, the sheer love and admiration that flowed from Lynne spoke volumes about just how much Orbison ultimately meant to him. The old adage tries to tell you that you should never meet your heroes, but in Lynne’s case, he befriended him, worked with him, laughed with him, and truly loved him.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter
All the latest Classic Rock content from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.