The Monty Python members who orchestrated the Traveling Wilburys
The Traveling Wilburys seemed like the greatest happy accident in music history when they first debuted. They had the potential to be one of the biggest bands in the world, but they were normally happy to play amongst friends and never bothered trying to take their music on the road for any reason. Even for a band that had legends like George Harrison and Tom Petty in their ranks, they had some comedic friends in high places when the Monty Python crew became involved with their records.
Then again, the comedy troupe were never that far away from Harrison during their glory years. Harrison’s love of Life of Brian and his cameo as a news reporter during the mockumentary of The Rutles made him a fan favourite with everyone who watched the show, and his willingness to mortgage his house to finance one of their movies is still one of the most generous acts he had ever done.
Beyond the comedy, though, Harrison probably saw faint glimpses of the kind of hijinx that he got into with his other band when looking at the group. Just like The Beatles, Monty Python was all about having fun and pushing the envelope ever so slightly, and that was the same logic that went into making Traveling Wilburys.
Because since the band came together on a whim, a lot of what came from the few sessions felt incredibly homemade. Looking back through video footage of them recording, it’s easy to look at every writing session like a bunch of dads sitting together over a cup of coffee, normally throwing out the occasional line here and there until something sticks out in the right way for the melody to sit on top of.
Since everyone would have known exactly who all the Wilburys were, though, Monty Python came into play when working on the record’s packaging. On the first album, Michael Palin was responsible for putting together the liner notes, even helping give everyone their Wilbury nickname and building up the mystique of them being in a travelling road band, not unlike another conceptual piece by The Beatles with a sergeant at the front.
Even after Roy Orbison tragically passed away, the band never forgot their sense of humour when working on Traveling Wilburys Vol. III. This time around, Eric Idle helped flesh out the world of the Wilburys a little bit more, even introducing Ken Wilbury into the fold when Gary Moore sat in to play a solo on the opening single, ‘She’s My Baby’.
And by the end of their time together, that sense of humour was contagious on the record. No one was going to claim that ‘Wilbury Twist’ was the deepest song that any of them had ever written, but considering that the song refuses to end on the final go-around of the verse and keeps adding in lines haphazardly, lines about how people have got the gist of the song may as well have been a joke by the Python guys that somehow became a full song.
Even though every one of the Wilburys had a reputation of being serious, having some of the members of Monty Python there was a great way of diffusing the situation. Tom Petty repped for the heartland and Harrison was always practising his spiritual side, but it’s good to know that they never forgot how to laugh.
