The Traveling Wilburys – Handle With Care
1988 · Directed by David Leland
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Best comments
1.“When the teacher puts all the smart kids in one group... you get this.”
More comments
- 2.“I'm 77, near the end of the line, and these days I need handling with care. These guys were the heroes of my youth. It's a joy to hear them together.”
- 3.“I'm 77 too, and these guys give me that musical rush... we've got plenty of time left.”
The story
One of rock's happiest accidents started as a B-side. In April 1988 Warner Bros. asked George Harrison for one extra track for a European single. Harrison was in Los Angeles having dinner with Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison, every real studio in town was booked, so he called Bob Dylan, who had one in his garage. Tom Petty got roped in when Harrison stopped by his house to pick up a guitar. Harrison wrote most of it that morning, Dylan chipped in words between turns at the barbecue, and the title came off a label on a box sitting in the garage.
Warner heard it and said no way is this filler. So the five of them became a band, all under fake Wilbury names, and Handle With Care became their first single in October 1988. It went top five in Australia, Canada and New Zealand and number two on US rock radio.
David Leland, who had just directed a HandMade Films picture for Harrison, shot the video that same October in an abandoned brewery near Union Station in Los Angeles. No gimmicks. Five legends crowd around one old-fashioned microphone and play. Lynne called it a nice film where they're just playing, and MTV and VH-1 ran it to death. It was also the last video Roy Orbison ever made. He died of a heart attack that December, which makes the shot of him in his long black coat and red shoes hit a little harder every time.
