‘Dirty World’: The Traveling Wilburys lyrics lifted straight from magazines
Songwriting is a miraculous skill. It can be learned, to an extent, but it seems as though some people’s minds are more naturally adept at songwriting in ways that escape other musicians. Throughout musical history, certain songwriters have risen to the top of the proverbial pyramid, hailed as the cream of the songwriting crop. So, when five of those defining figures combined forces in 1988, The Traveling Wilburys were truly something to behold.
It was George Harrison and ELO’s Jeff Lynne who first dreamed up the idea of creating this unparalleled supergroup, during the production of the former Beatle’s 1987 record Cloud Nine. Ironically, Harrison’s songwriting contributions to The Beatles were regularly ignored or overshadowed by his bandmates, particularly John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Despite penning iconic works like ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’, and ‘Taxman’, the guitarist was rarely afforded the same songwriting respect as his bandmates.
That all changed during Harrison’s solo career, which was chock full of groundbreaking compositions and fiercely original works, setting the songwriter apart from virtually everybody else. At the same time, figures like Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne were making a name for themselves as similarly forward-thinking musicians looking to take rock music in bold and interesting new directions.
So, when Harrison formed The Traveling Wilburys in 1988, adding Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison into the mix, he had curated some of the world’s all-time greatest songwriters.
You might expect that the combined efforts of these legendary names were sonically confused or overdeveloped, owing to the contrasting styles of each musician in the band. In actuality, though, the five members of the Wilburys showed an incredible ability to gel together, crafting some truly incredible tracks. With each member used to working independently, though, the songwriting process for the Wilburys was wildly different to what they were used to.
As such, the supergroup incorporated all sorts of different influences and songwriting methods. There were few expectations when it came to this bold new band, so the members tended to experiment and have fun while creating songs. Tom Petty put it best when he revealed, “It was just a bunch of friends who happened to be really good at making music.” A key example of that fact was the song ‘Dirty World’, from the band’s first record.
Featuring Bob Dylan as the predominant vocalist, albeit with vocal contributions from the rest of the band, the lyrics of the song are often nonsensical. Random mentions of a “five-speed gearbox”, “bottled water”, and “electric dumplings” seem pretty out-of-character for Dylan to sing, considering he lent his songwriting talents to some of the most enduring and socially-conscious songs ever recorded. Apparently, though, this nonsensical lyricism came from the method by which the track was written.
Reportedly, Harrison handed out a variety of magazines to his bandmates, and each songwriter picked out a handful of words or phrases that stuck out to them. Then, when it came to recording the final section of ‘Dirty World’, the supergroup simply read out different entries on the list of words they had curated from the magazine, creating an endearingly improvisational feeling to the final song.
