How Tom Petty accidentally joined the Traveling Wilburys: “Strange coincidences”
Out of all The Traveling Wilburys, it’s hard not to see Tom Petty as the new boy among legends. Sure, he had his fair share of hits to be considered a legend himself, but not many people could have held their own next to artists like George Harrison and Bob Dylan. If Harrison had kept track of where all of his guitars were, though, chances are Petty would have been left out of one of the greatest supergroups of all time.
Then again, the entire formation of the band was purely coincidental. The only reason why Harrison got the idea in the first place was when he was working with Jeff Lynne on the album Cloud Nine. Everything seemed to be going fine until they needed one more B-side, so Harrison figured that he would use Bob Dylan’s studio for the track.
At the same time, Lynne would never be a producer who stuck to just one artist. He was also working with Roy Orbison on a song with Petty called ‘You Got It’, which Harrison believed was too good an opportunity to work with one of his idols.
When Harrison went to work on his new track, he realised that he was short one guitar, telling Runnin’ Down a Dream, “I thought, ‘Well, I’ll go in and do one real quick.’ We used Bob’s studio. My guitar was at Tom’s house for some reason, so there was a lot of strange coincidences.” Since Petty was home, Harrison figured he’d ask if his buddy wanted to come to the studio and maybe flesh out the song with him.
While there’s a good chance that no one would pass up the idea of working with a Beatle, Petty was amazed seeing all of his heroes in one room, recalling, “The one thing I learned was I got to see a bunch of my favourite writers write.” Then again, this wasn’t going to be any normal songwriting session.
According to Petty, every line was made in a round-robin style, telling Martin Scorsese, “You’d always just throw a line out there, and then you’d everyone go, ‘NO’. And then another one would get thrown out, and you’d hear them, ‘Oh, that’s good. Yeah, I like that.’ Bob told George, ‘What’s the name of the song? You gotta have a name for it.’ And there was a crate on the other side of the room that said, ‘HANDLE WITH CARE’. And I witnessed him look over at the crate and say, ‘Oh, it’s called ‘Handle With Care’.”
Although Petty was still wet behind the ears by the other ageing rock stars’ standards, his rootsy voice was just what the band needed. Considering how much sonic sheen is put on Harrison, Orbison and Lynne throughout the whole record, hearing Petty’s uncanny drawl right next to Dylan keeps it from getting too saccharine half the time.
Petty also managed to walk away with some of the best lines on the album, including the bridges in ‘End of The Line’, where he talks about being proud to get to this position in his life. After going through all hell to do what he wanted, the fact that he got to hold his own against Dylan and Harrison at the same time is still something to be proud of.
