The “perfect” song Tom Petty called everything great about the Traveling Wilburys
Tom Petty was only too happy when he was asked to join a band like the Traveling Wilburys.
There was no doubt that he was the newest member of the band at the time, but when looking at every other rootsy rock and roller that had formed the band, he seemed to fit right in performing next to Bob Dylan and George Harrison when he strapped on his guitar. But even if they couldn’t go wrong, there are pieces of their songs that could capture the spirit of those times perfectly.
But there was never any sense of competition when working with the Wilburys or anything. He felt like half of their songs were about them having a laugh and getting together to have some fun, and you can really feel that on the tape. ‘Handle With Care’ was already proof enough that Harrison’s idea worked when everyone got their own line to sing, but any song on the record could have been a chance for them to try something new.
At the same time, it’s not like Petty was going to be giving up some of the best songs of his career or anything. You have to remember in the timeline of Petty’s career, Full Moon Fever comes directly after this, and so it wouldn’t have made any sense to give up songs like ‘Free Fallin’’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down’ even if he was standing next to one of the former Beatles. He needed to make something new for them, and ‘Last Nite’ served their vibe a lot better, anyway.
When you listen to every other song on the record, though, each member gets their time in the spotlight at least once. They were a united front on most things when they were working on the record, but there was no way that anyone else was going to sing a song like ‘Not Alone Any More’ except for Roy Orbison, nor was anyone going to try to do the same thing Bob Dylan did to a song like ‘Congratulations’.
If you wanted a good idea of what the band was all about, though, you were better off going to the last song on the record, ‘End of the Line’. Dylan might not have had as much of a vocal presence on that specific song, but when listening back to the entire body of work, Petty knew that there weren’t many songs in their catalogue that could manage to touch anything that they did on that song.
Compared to the songs that functioned as musical vehicles, Petty felt that ‘End of the Line’ showcased everyone perfectly, saying, “I think ‘End of the Line’ is the perfect example of everyone singing a little bit, everyone writing a little bit. Everything came out really nice. I love that song; I love the sentiment of it. It was one of our best ones, I think.” And for a song all about the passage of time, it works perfectly for the Wilburys.
And no, it’s not just because all of the band members were reaching content middle age at this point in their careers. They had spent their lives making the best music they could, and even if they were just hanging out, the sentiment of taking every day as it comes and being able to have no worries when going to the end of the line isn’t actually that far off from what Harrison had been talking about all his life, whenever he talked about his spiritual side.
The song wasn’t meant to be one of the greatest tunes that any of the members ever made, but there aren’t many tunes in any of the catalogues that seem to have the same kind of happy-go-lucky spirit about them. Every one of their tracks was about having a bit of fun with their pals, and there aren’t that many people who could make songs sound that care-free at that stage of their careers.
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