(Credits: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys)
Mon 23 March 2026 20:30, UK
There’s lots of talk about supergroups in music history, but there aren’t perhaps any as powerful as The Traveling Wilburys.
Made up of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty, the band were something of a rock and roll avengers, defying all expectations that combined egos make for a toxic creative environment.
In fact, the moment the band agreed to embark on this uncharted journey of supergroup recording, there was an unspoken agreement to put all things glamorous to one side. Their individual egos simply had no room to dominate, for high-tech recording studios and expensive riders were abandoned for DIY kitchen studios and a reliance on the trusted acoustic guitar.
In fact, the third track from their debut album, The Traveling Wilburys Vol 1, ‘Rattled’ was recorded in a kitchen. OK, it was the kitchen of a Californian villa, owned by Eurhythmics’ Dave Stewart, but a kitchen devoid of engineering desks and glamorous green rooms nonetheless.
“That track, the sound, I think, is just so close to a good old rock ‘n’ roll thing from the late 1950s,” George Harrison recalled when asked about the track, going a long way to proving that the band’s sole intention was to keep it old school.
You could argue then, that in many ways ‘Rattled’ epitomises the transatlantic chemistry of the band. But then there is ‘Tweeter And The Monkey Man’ which lets the storytelling master Bob Dylan run free on the track, thrusting into a state of rock and roll iconography.
It was one of the songs written in Stewart’s Californian kitchen and doesn’t stray too far from the trusted formula they had conjured up in those loose sessions. But with Dylan on lead vocals, it dives deeper into the sense of storytelling that he was famed for and with the help of compatriot Tom Petty, became something of a gritty American tale.
George Harrison remembered that he and Lynne felt somewhat confused by the track, and “were just sitting round in the kitchen and he for some reason was talking about all this stuff which didn’t make much sense to me. You know, it was that Americana kind of stuff. And we got a tape cassette, put it on and then transcribed everything they were saying.”
The song tells the dramatic and poetic story of two drug dealers in New Jersey, with a catalogue of truly Dylan-esque characters: Mr Jones, Jack of Hearts, and Dr Filth, as well as the two protagonists. While many suggest the song is a tongue-in-cheek ribbing of New Jersey native Bruce Springsteen, it’s nevertheless a compelling tale full of dark humour and drama, designed to uncover the jilted social make-up of modern America.
While the Wilburys were largely concerned with making carefree music that universally spoke to their broad audience, made up of their individual fans, this was the one track that used the American ground on which they all lived as inspiration, and allowed American hero Bob Dylan to lead them in doing so.
