Big O in Britain, The (2008) Movie Script
# Only the lonely... #
People that are completely unique, you don't so much admire them as marvel at them.
# Only the lonely... #
I was sitting in the living room with my mum and my auntie and he came on the radio.
What a voice, yeah, fantastic. I always liked his stuff, bought his records.
My mum and my auntie were going, "Oh, he's too sexy!"
# I remember that you said
# Goodbye... #
All of us in studying the craft of making a good record
had studied Roy's work.
In many ways, my whole life has been fashioned subconsciously by him.
The way he was and the way he sang made him dead cool.
Pretty difficult to find in Glasgow, when you look about shops and want a pair of roll-ups and sunglasses.
# Golden days before they end... #
I think Roy and England had a love affair. I mean, Roy loved the British and the British loved Roy.
APPLAUSE
INTRO TO "Pretty Woman"
# Pretty woman, walkin' down the street... #
By the 1980s, Roy Orbison's status as a living legend was well and truly confirmed
when some big names in music queued up to be in the backing band for his Black And White Night concert.
Roy and I talked about doing a show that would be a performance show for Roy.
So we set a time finally,
September 1987.
# I couldn't help but see, pretty woman... #
It had been a while since people had focused on Roy's music in this way.
A lot of care was taken to do the songs justice, as the show does.
# W-w-wow... #
I'm being asked all the time how this wonderful cast came together.
Everybody just seemed to be available at that particular time.
If we had done it a month before or later, I don't think everybody could have been there.
I don't think the entire ensemble was put together until we were all on the set at the Coconut Grove.
'I know Bruce Springsteen arrived at the very last minute.'
- How did you end there?
- 'My big memory of that night'
was Bruce arriving for the sound check and then realising
that his memory of the songs was not the same as the ability to play them.
- # Sweet dream, baby... #
- And then you go...
# Sweet dream... #
'When he looked at the charts and realised there were odd counts in some of the songs...'
I have an image of him sitting with his guitar with the head... like a cassette Walkman,
comparing what he had obviously memorised over a couple of decades since the records came out
to what was written on the page and closing the distance between the two things to play on these songs.
It's the measure of how much he loved Roy cos he was really dedicated.
# Sweet dreams, baby
# Oh, how long must I dream? #
OK.
# Sweet dreams, baby... #
Orbison clearly inspired anyone who was anyone in music, but where did all the raw talent come from?
Born in 1936 in the small town of Vernon, Texas,
from an early age, Roy was single-minded in his pursuit of a career in music.
My mom and dad gave me a guitar when I was six years old.
I always wanted to be a singer. My father asked me, when I was about six or seven,
maybe even earlier, I don't know if I was playing the guitar or not,
but he said, "What will you be when you grow up?" I said, "A singer."
I was able to get on a radio show when I was eight years old.
An "Amateur Hour", and I showed up so often that they made me a part of the show.
When I was 14, I think, I had moved to West Texas. And I formed a group.
We were from Wink, Texas, so we were The Wink Westerners.
When we got more popular, we became The Teen Kings.
# We'll hang out and raise some fun We'll stay out till after one... #
I met him the first time in Odessa, Texas. He had a group that played on TV there and the song was Ooby Dooby.
# Ooby dooby, ooby dooby
# Ooby dooby, ooby dooby, ooby dooby... #
I made a demonstration record called Ooby Dooby.
And I sent that to Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee.
He asked me, could I be there in three days?
So I grabbed my group together and we made the record.
I dropped out of the university, the junior college I was attending,
and went on the road within two or three months.
What I thought at the time was the smallest voice was Roy Orbison.
Sam Phillips said he had to put the microphone down his throat to pick him up,
but I think Sam had the wrong kind of microphone
because his later records prove that he has not only got a great, strong voice,
but he is one of the greatest singers in our business. He saw his own potential, as did others,
and he moved to a bigger label and had bigger records.
# Pretty woman, walkin' down the street
# Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet
# Pretty woman... #
Searching for ways to fulfil that potential,
Roy looked across the Atlantic to an early '60s music culture in Britain, ready to embrace something new.
# Mercy... #
In the early '60s, I worked for Decca
as a promotion man, and my job,
apart from promoting records, was to look after American artists in London. I was 21. It was a dream job.
# Are you lonely just like me?
# W-w-wow...
# Pretty woman, stop awhile
# Pretty woman... #
Very American, southern, polite, and that was my initial impression of Roy.
Very softly spoken, polite, appreciative. He was a gentleman.
A real gentleman actually.
It was that kind of rather sweet, southern states of America charm that he had.
# Pretty paper
# Pretty ribbons of blue
# Wrap your presents
# To your darling from you
# Pretty pencils
# To write... #
He would invariably come with his wife Claudette and his boys.
They'd have a little apartment.
I would spend a lot of time with them as a family cos they were very family.
And he loved having the boys around, he loved having Claudette around.
And so I became part of their family.
# Downtown shoppers
# Christmas is nigh... #
He always reminded me of like a preacher. He was so gentle.
Very sweet. Loved his family. He was just a lovely guy.
We were all mental. We were young and mad.
Roy was a very polite American. He was very sweet.
We were Scousers, hard cases, nutters. He was a gentleman.
We were idolising Americans at this point.
We had Cliff and we had Tommy Steele, but...
We were just kids from Liverpool who knew nothing, following Roy Orbison, a massive star,
whose songs we had sung for years. We were there with him - a dream!
# Well, I got a woman mean as she can be
# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #
The Brits were so enamoured
of American rock'n'roll.
They possibly appreciated them more than the Americans did.
The songs seemed more hip, the performances were more hip. That's what we were all about.
I think any British recording artist from that period would probably tell you the same thing.
# So ple-e-e-ease... #
Though Britain was hungry for all things American,
Roy's first UK tour would be an unexpected test of how loyal his British fans might be.
An all-English musical phenomenon was sweeping the country and Roy had to share the bill with The Beatles.
From what George told me,
they were so starved of rock'n'roll and waited for records to come out.
They knew this thing was going on in America, so it was just something that they were really hungry for.
The Beatles responded to Roy with total admiration.
I can't emphasise how much American artists were the thing to admire.
And all things American.
Before I joined The Stones, I thought he was fantastic.
Then he toured with The Beatles in '63.
The Beatles were on the tour with us - ourselves and Roy. Massive tour.
It was my first record, first No.1
and my first tour with Mr Roy Orbison who became a very dear friend.
And such a lovely guy.
# Well, I got a woman Yeah, I got a woman
# Yeah, I got a woman... #
George told me they followed Roy and they would stand in the wings listening to this big ending
and they'd be just trembling, thinking, "How are we gonna go out and follow this?"
APPLAUSE
And his last note was 47 miles high in the sky. The kids went, "Whoa!"
In spite of the fact that The Beatles were getting this huge acclaim
from the British public,
right from the word go really, from Love Me Do, it started...
When Roy came on stage,
he still had the goods to... top them.
# Just before the dawn... #
He just stood there...
And sang. That's all he did. He didn't do anything else.
I don't remember him putting one foot to the left or right.
# I can't help it
# I can't help it... #
That was what the impact was.
It was that he had the nerve... to do that.
To just stand there and let his voice do the work.
# It's too bad that all these things... #
Some people just give off this aura. They don't have to move about.
I've been trying to do it for 30 years, but it doesn't happen with me, so I stay in the shadows.
# Only in dreams... #
In my case, when you see me perform,
what happens is that I sing and the audience watches me do that.
# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #
On opening night, I had between seven to 15, 20 encores.
Paul and John grabbed me by the arms and said, "Yankee, go home!"
They wouldn't let me take my last curtain call but it was in good fun.
And that voice, my God! It used to annoy me, it was so good.
# Each place we go
# So afraid... #
He'd sing Runnin' Scared and his mouth would go... # Just runnin' scared... #
Like this, this tiny little movement of the mouth.
And he'd get to the end of that song where it goes up and up and up and his mouth still wasn't moving!
Not a lot. Not like, "I'm really gonna give it the full whack."
He'd still stand there and his mouth would open slightly more.
Then out would come this incredible note and I think that was what was so thrilling.
His modesty, in combination with his vocal prowess, was quite something to see.
# You loved him so... #
He sounded different from what we'd ever heard before. Elvis didn't do that.
And just a difference in sound that man made, that's why he was so popular.
# If he came back
# Which one would you choose? #
I never had any formal training. I think maybe it's just that I might be a baritone
with a real high range, two and a half octaves or so, but I never checked it.
# His head in the air
# Oh, my heart was breaking Which one would it be?
# You turned around
# And walked away with me. #
I started singing this way because I was writing songs
and I wrote the melody that I heard in my head
and then I had to sing those notes as well. I didn't know how high or low you were supposed to go!
# I could smile for a while... #
when I tried to sing along with it, of course,
it sounded like a wounded duck!
Because of his range.
And it was something to sing along with to learn how to sing.
#..couldn't tell
# That I'd been cry-y-ying... #
If you could sing along with it,
you became aware of how to make your voice do things
that we might not have understood.
# Left me standing all alone Alone and crying... #
There was something in Roy's voice
that was completely unique to him,
which was obviously a good thing because it was hard to emulate.
It had a crying sound to it. It almost was like a controlled cry.
His performance would just tear your heart out.
He could...
He could express all that emotion.
And, uh...
He was really different. Really different than anybody else.
# I love you even more than I did before
# But, darling, what can I do-o-o?
# For you don't love me
# And I'll always be
# Cry-y-y-ying over you... #
I think Roy's voice is like an opera voice, only sexy.
Opera voices... To me they're not sexy because of the music they're singing.
But Roy doing rock'n'roll and blues and blue notes, with that kind of opera voice,
that made it really different and put an opera slant on a rock'n'roll track.
It's wonderful and it's sad at the same time
because that's the inflection he puts into the soulfulness of his voice.
He's got marvellous soul. He was probably a soul singer before any of them.
# Crying
# O-o-o-o-o-o...
..ver you-u-u! #
Like Elvis said, "The best singer in the world right there, Roy Orbison."
He was the best singer of all.
# Golden days before they end... #
Roy's entry into the British music scene had been a triumph
with It's Over topping the UK charts in 1964,
but personal tragedy would soon threaten to end Roy's career.
In 1966, his wife Claudette was killed in a motorbike accident
and there was even more heartbreak to come.
He had this beautiful boy called Roy DeWayne. I used to take him to the zoo.
I loved his company. He was a really sweet kid.
I remember once I came back to the promotion offices, the Decca offices,
and Roy DeWayne, I'd exhausted him.
He must have been about six or seven. He wasn't a baby.
And I'd had to carry him back to the office. He was so exhausted, he fell asleep.
I remember his little head on my shoulder.
# But, oh, what will you do? #
And then he got... burnt to death in that fire.
# We're through... #
We'd been playing the Birmingham theatre for a week.
It was September, '68.
The following day we were going to do a last performance, a concert in Bournemouth.
Then he was flying back to the US. That was the end of the tour.
I got a call at 3am, local time in England.
# Send falling stars that seem to cry... #
He was on tour in England and got the news that his house had burned and he'd lost two of his boys.
I remember thinking, "How is that...
"..man gonna cope with that?"
# It breaks your heart in two... #
He stayed in seclusion for quite a while.
We made contact and let him know we cared and were concerned
and...it was a long time until I saw Roy
because it wasn't something that he was wanting to talk about.
To be quite honest, I really thought at that particular point in time that he...
..that we would never see him again.
He had not really worked since Claudette had died.
However, I did get another call saying that he was coming back.
To a large extent, Roy's return had been made possible by someone he had fallen in love with before the fire.
We started dating and six weeks later the house fire happened in Hendersonville.
I think it was such a gift for him to have fallen in love with me before,
so he did have a focus. It gave him a chance to create a life that he really wanted
and that was one of a real stable family and to have more kids.
You know, Roy had just such an incredible gentle strength.
He scaled the heights and the lows.
# Lonely rivers sigh... #
I arrived in December of '68
in Tennessee.
And then we travelled in America and we got married in March.
We had Roy Kelton Junior, who was born in 1970, and Alex in '74,
and we had Wesley from the marriage with Claudette.
If you would have seen Roy with the kids, you'd never have suspected that he'd lost two kids
in a house fire while he was touring in England.
# Time goes by... #
He came through it in a really great way, a very surprising way.
He came back stronger than ever after this terrible loss of his two boys.
He came back with all of the determination and the will
to go ahead and be the great artist he is.
INTRO TO "Pretty Woman"
As the '70s dawned, a new-look Roy returned again and again to tour for his UK fans.
And, of course, the Orbison family went, too.
# Pretty woman walking down the street... #
When it was tour time, we all went. Nannies, everybody just went... out on the road.
Baby formulas, baby cribs, perambulators, whatever it took.
You know?
Mercy!
We would be, tours or no tours, probably four or five months out of the year in London.
We practically lived here in the '70s, and loved it.
# Pretty woman
# You look lovely as can be... #
He loved England. He loved the British people. Something about them Roy liked.
I think it was a love affair. Roy loved England.
He loved everything about it.
He loved the food - and that was tough to love in the '60s!
He came up to my house in the Midlands
and he brought with him,
he showed me in his trunk. "Look what I've brought!"
And he'd got, like, four sets of pie and mash.
You know, for everybody. Brought from London.
# Pretty woman, say you'll stay... #
Roy, I think, just loved the English way of life.
He would love to listen to accents, see places in Scotland, visit castles.
And walk the hills. Nut case!
We were in bed, he was walking the hills! He just loved Britain. And we loved him.
# Pretty woman... #
He was very real. He wasn't slick and he wasn't showbizzy.
He didn't have a patter. He didn't... He wasn't a schmoozy kind of guy.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate you coming tonight, very much. We're happy to be here. Hope you are.
He was that same person, onstage and offstage.
It was never about ego.
You know, it was just about being himself.
# Only the lonely
# Know the way I feel tonight... #
It's inherent in the British nature
to admire modesty,
especially when it's accompanied with a great talent.
# There goes my baby... #
He was a shy man,
a family man, a quiet man.
Who he was was just as much a part of everything as what he was singing.
# Know why-y-y
# I cry... #
By the time we got married, all that was important was to have a great relationship
and to live life
and to sort of mend those incredible painful times
and to really enjoy life and do what he felt he was called on this earth for.
# Yeah, a woman.. #
He said, "For that I'll go anywhere. Smallest club, biggest arenas."
THRASHING GUITARS
Though Roy still had a loyal following, the mid-'70s saw a change in the British music scene.
The rejection of the mainstream and the stripped-down instrumentation of punk rock seemed, at first glance,
to leave little room for The Big O.
# Pretty woman Won't you pardon me?
# Pretty woman I couldn't help but see
# Pretty woman, you look lovely... # See, I can't get up there!
When I was in the Sex Pistols, if you were a closet music fan, like myself,
there were loads of bands I'd have got hung for if it had gotten out that I liked them.
Would he come under that umbrella that it's old hat and you shouldn't be liking them?
We were against all that nonsense.
I don't think that is the case.
I don't think he ever fell into that bag of being out of flavour.
When I was growing up in the '70s, Roy was kind of an anachronism.
He was completely out of kilter with the times and, em...
People I was hanging out with didn't have Roy Orbison albums. They just didn't.
He was from a different era.
But then as the '70s begat punk rock,
there became an interest in the '50s.
I think punk rock was a '50s thing, in a way. A rebel without a cause.
The short haircuts, the stance of Elvis, stripping things down to the bone.
So it was through the door that punk rock opens that Roy Orbison walks into my life.
You have to remember, Roy didn't get to be Roy Orbison by being... like anything but outside the norm.
Those guys in Memphis, when they created rockabilly,
they didn't create rockabilly by being the boy next door.
# Just running scared
# Feeling low... #
Although he was right in there at the very beginning with Jerry Lee and Elvis,
I think because he was so unique, his particular type of singing,
he didn't really come in or out of fashion.
And when rock'n'roll came to England, and then English music went back to America,
Roy was sort of outside of that.
# If he came back
# Which one would you choose? #
I think birds liked his music more than blokes. But he wasn't a pansy,
singing songs about being hurt by some bird and his feelings, you know?
# His head in the air
# My heart was breaking Which one... #
It's not a sissy thing for a man to sing about emotions.
It's real. And I think everybody can relate to that.
He does it in such a way that is so open, he opens his heart completely.
Not being a wimp.
I think that was the magnificent part about the singer and the songwriter Roy Orbison.
He turned something that could have been a weakness into a strength.
It was very unusual at the time. Since then, everybody's crying like a tart.
But in them days it was quite bold to say he cried.
He was one of the first Top 40 artists
to take away or veer off from the traditional way of saying things.
Which he did in those classic songs.
I had to write the songs that I wanted to sing because no one else really would at the time.
Then I thought since I wrote them I might sing them better than the next person. It goes like that.
What the style is is basically me and my personal taste.
Roy the singer, people talk about all the time. Everybody curtsies to the voice and so they should.
The thing people don't talk about enough, as far as I'm concerned,
is how innovative this music was, how radical in terms of its songwriting.
I don't think in terms of two verses and a chorus
or the accepted method of songwriting. Wherever I want to go, that's where I go.
# In dreams I walk... #
The classic pop structure is, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus,
middle eight, chorus, end. I mean most pop songs in the world are like that.
And then you hear In Dreams.
# In dreams you're mine
# All of... #
I can't remember the structure, but it's like A, B, C, D, E, F, G! I mean, nothing repeats!
From those odd proportions comes the tension and from that comes the emotional impact
that takes you somewhere unexpected.
# But just before the dawn... #
He slowly built it from nothing and into this huge climax
and then it went into another part which was even better. That's what I liked about his songs.
# I can't help it I can't help it if I cry... #
And that's really hard to do as a songwriter.
The ability to just have the music flow with the storyline.
Very few people could do that.
#..all these things Can only happen... #
What you end up with is a pop song that broke every rule.
And...and won.
It's like a classical composition.
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams. #
I was at a classical concert one night
and this Schumann song started that was in the programme.
And I said, "This is the actual melody of a Roy Orbison song!"
# You know I can't help myself
# And now I'm crawling back... #
Roy's song goes... # Only you and you alone Can keep me crawling back
# After all you've done to me The way you've turned me down
# I still will be your clown Because I love you...
# I still will be your clown Because I love you... #
And the Schumann song goes... HUMS THE SAME MELODY
It has a very similar shape, you know.
# You know I would die for you.. #
I suppose like anybody of his age, he could have turned on the radio and heard some gracious melodies.
It doesn't fit in with the other things about his music, as I understand it.
And those early records on Sun were of their time and good records, but they were rock'n'roll records
and at a certain point he started writing these ballads that are not like anything else.
# Crawling back to you... #
Roy was the real thing. In a time when very few people wrote their own material.
There was so much soul in that music and mystery.
And it was. It was mystery music.
They were very dramatic songs and he was kind of dramatic, too.
He was very dark and always in black and the glasses.
# Wild hearts run out of time
# And you'll need a love like mine
# To show you hope is there... #
I never knew why he wore the shades. I think he thought he had weak eyes, or something.
# Wild hearts run out of time. #
I simply left my clear pair on the aeroplane when I toured with The Beatles in '63.
By the time the pictures came back and he'd played a couple of nights,
he never changed. He always wore sunglasses every night he played for the rest of his life.
# Don't let the bright lights burn you... #
Buddy Holly made it OK to wear prescription glasses onstage.
And then Roy made it cool to wear prescription sunglasses. They're still cool today.
# Wild hearts run out of time
# When you're up against the night... #
It's very common for people to wear dark glasses on TV now, but I can't remember anybody before him.
There was a reason why he did it, but it gave him a mysteriousness and they played that up quite a bit.
The image and music together, it went together.
Black sunglasses and mystery.
# You'll need a love like mine... #
There was certainly something dark and a little bit... It was menacing, in an odd sort of way.
# A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman
# Tiptoes to my room every night... #
Roy's records suddenly started to appear in movies
in the early '80s. Most notably in Blue Velvet.
The shock of hearing a song like that in a different context, juxtaposed with this very dark scene,
it heightened what was already in there, this mysterious, slightly unsettling quality the songs have.
# I softly say
# A silent prayer... #
Things like Running Scared and In Dreams were so dense and evocative and dark and cinematic.
It just had a stranglehold on the dark side of life.
"Candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman". Where does that come from?
# In dreams I walk with you... #
I was thinking all along that it was Crying that would be in Blue Velvet
and I needed to get the record cos I heard it on the radio.
So I got Roy's Greatest Hits.
And...
So I put it on and I was going through it and In Dreams came up
and I completely forgot about Crying and In Dreams was just, you know, perfect.
# A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman
# Tiptoes to my room every night
# Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper, "Go to sleep..." #
Dennis Hopper was supposed to sing it and so I got him the music and told him to learn the lyrics
and practise. And I thought he was memorising it.
And, uh, Dean Stockwell is a good friend of Dennis's,
He said he would work with Dennis, so I pictured the two of them going and Dennis having it down.
And in the process, you know, Dennis had kind of...
burned himself pretty bad from his past living and wasn't able to memorise these things.
#..of you
# In dreams I walk with you... #
But Dean memorised it, so when we started rehearsing the scene,
where the song was supposed to be, at a certain point
the two of them were sort of singing and Dennis just dropped out and was just watching Dean.
And Dean was letter perfect.
And it just was so obvious what was supposed to happen.
All right. Let's hit the road!
I heard rumours that after the film was released
Roy saw it and was upset about...
That song meant something to Roy and it didn't mean what it was in the film.
There was such a... sexual conflict going on in his songs.
They weren't about holding hands.
They were about... There was a grind to them.
There was a sweatiness, a longing, an anxiousness about them. They were basically songs about sex.
# It's too bad... #
Then he saw it again and changed his mind and appreciated it from a different point of view.
So by the time I met Roy, he was pretty happy about Blue Velvet.
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams... #
I'd had David Lynch's soundtrack to Blue Velvet
and I had it on repeat. It was going round and round.
And it kept stopping, appropriately, on In Dreams.
I couldn't sleep and this song was going through my head.
When I woke up the next day, I had a song in my head, which I presumed was another Roy Orbison song.
I looked for it and couldn't find it.
Maybe...maybe I'd just written it!
So I took it down to the soundcheck and I played the tune to the rest of the band. They really liked it.
I said, "It's like a Roy Orbison song. Is it?"
They said, "Yeah, yeah." And we played the concert,
then after the show I was sitting with the guitar again, trying to finish the song.
They said, "You really are going on about this song." I said, "It's really in my head. Mystery Girl."
I was trying to finish it. And this sounds like horseshit, but there was a knock at the door
and John, our security guy, said, "There's Roy Orbison and his wife, Barbara, outside.
"Can I bring them in? They'd really like to meet you."
So the band looked at me like...
I'd either been winding them up or I had some voodoo in me.
My wife and kiddies had been to see U2,
and told me about them. I hadn't heard them or seen them.
I went to one of their concerts in London when I was there
with fresh ears and...
I wasn't expecting anything. I just went with an open mind.
He said in his very quiet voice, "Really liked the show. Can't tell you why I liked it, but I did.
"You wouldn't have a song for me? Or shall we write a song together? I'm just into what you're doing."
So everyone's falling round. No one could quite believe their ears.
And I played him there and then this song, She's A Mystery To Me.
In 1988, Roy was working on his album Mystery Girl with producer Jeff Lynne,
who had also worked with George Harrison. During long hours in the studio, George and Jeff often talked
about the line-up of their dream group. As Lefty Wilbury, Roy Orbison was about to become
the ultimate musician's musician.
When George and Jeff were in the studio working together
they sometimes had this thing, "We could have a band."
George would say, "We should have a group." I'd go, "Yeah, that'd be good. Let's have a group."
And it was, literally, "Who do you want in it?" I said, "I'd love Roy Orbison."
He said, "I want Bob Dylan in it." And it was just like that, like a pair of schoolkids.
It wasn't a contrived thing that happened. They weren't out to make a band.
It just happened. One event led to another.
I was working with Tom at the time and George knew Tom by then.
We said, "Let's have Tom!" All that remained was for George to ask them to be in it.
They all did. The one we had to convince last was Roy.
We went to see Roy in concert out in Anaheim somewhere. We all piled in a car.
# Don't relax I want elbows and backs I wanna see everybody from behind
# Cos you're working for the man... #
It was a brilliant show. All the people were going mad.
We were all going mad. Like, "Yeah! Give it some!"
And George was so keen. It was exciting. It was the first time I'd ever seen Roy perform.
We went back and George said to him, "Do you wanna be in our group?"
It was kinda like a proposal. I think George even got down on his knee!
And he sort of went, "Yeah, I suppose. I suppose so. Yeah."
And he offered to join there and then. So he was in the Traveling Wilburys then,
from that moment.
# Reputation's changeable
# Situation's tolerable
# But, baby, you're adorable
# Handle me with care
# I'm so tired of being lonely
# I still have some love to give
# Won't you show me that you really care?
# Everybody's got somebody to lean on... #
Sometimes we sing the same song just to see who sounded good. That was a lot of fun.
And George would kind of audition us, which was really intimidating
because Roy Orbison would sing the song and then they'd send you out to sing it.
Damn! That's really intimidating.
# Last night
# Thinking 'bout last night... #
They had a lot of fun, but they didn't goof around. It wasn't just one big party.
They were working.
There wasn't a lot of deciding what to do, not a lot of time spent planning out anything.
We just wrote the best songs we could write and sang them as best we could.
- She was long and tall.
- Or short and fat.
- She was dressed to kill. - That's
good. - She was out to give me a thrill.
Whichever way I looked around there was some conspiracy!
'And he was funny. That was the thing George enjoyed about him the most.'
He seemed to be a tragic figure or there was tragedy attached or projected to Roy,
but in reality he was very funny and...
and that was the sort of secret Roy that he loved to be around.
Sometimes Roy would have George and the guys in hysterics.
He loved Monty Python. That was his favourite comedy stuff
and he could do all the sketches on his own.
He had a slightly southern lilt and yet he would recite lines from Monty Python.
He'd break into a sketch of one of Python's routines, playing all the parts,
and end up giggling like a maniac and we'd all start giggling.
# I'm so tired of being lonely... #
He was surrounded by all the friends he really loved
and they really loved him. The basis of the Wilbury record was lots of laughter
and just lots of fun and incredible creativity.
# Every time I look into your lovely eyes... #
And so it came towards '88, Thanksgiving,
and we had all decided that we would go to George and Olivia's house in England
and spend Thanksgiving with them.
# I drift away
# I pray that you... #
Roy and I got stuck in Paris and never made it.
And Roy flew back to America because he had to fulfil two shows he had booked in Boston
and in Ohio. And those shows were like long-time booked.
# Baby... #
And I decided to stay in Europe.
# Every time I hold you I begin to understand... #
The last thing I heard from Roy was a message on my answer phone
saying, "Hey, Jeff, sorry I couldn't see you this trip, but I'm all Wilburied out."
He was really tired from doing all the interviews and he had his own album coming out.
He said, "I'll see you when I get back over in a few weeks."
# No one can do the things you do... #
I got a call one night from Roy that basically said
he had given in to come back to England. George had asked over and over for a second Wilbury video.
And I said, "Are you really sure?"
He said, "When I get off that plane, I know your smiling green eyes will be waiting for me.
"For that I will do anything."
So that was the last time I ever talked with him.
# Pretty ribbons of blue... #
The next thing, there was a phone call, a terrible phone call.
I picked the phone up at 6am.
# Pretty pencils to write... #
The phone call that you always dread getting
was one of those early morning phone calls to say Roy had died.
# Pretty ribbons of blue. #
Roy Orbison, one of the first and greatest rock performers,
has died from a heart attack. He was 52. In his prime, he topped bills above The Beatles
and this year was in the charts again in a supergroup with George Harrison and Bob Dylan.
Roy would have liked us to have continued to do The End of The Line. It's a very optimistic song.
We love Roy and life flows on within you and without you.
He's around, you know, in his astral body.
# Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays... # We played it like he was there.
We'd all look at the armchair and there would be Lefty and it was just his guitar.
# Well, it's all right If you got someone to love
# Well, it's all right Everything will work out fine... #
If Roy had been giving you the interview today, and you asked him about his songs,
what was his best song ever, he'd have said, "I haven't written it yet."
# I'm just glad to be here Happy to be alive... #
The artists today that have come along in the last 20 years
probably don't remember the Wilburys in '88 had a number one album.
# It's all right Even if you're old and grey... #
My favourite Roy Orbison song has got to be Crying.
It's something I want to put on
when I'm feeling bad about something, some heartache.
He just touches me with his voice.
# I thought that I was over you... #
One of the things I like about his songwriting and his lyrics
is that I think, ultimately,
he's letting his guard down.
All his songs, I think... I'd be made up to write any song like that.
But it would have to be my favourite, Crying. I'd love to have written that song. Amazing.
# For you don't love me... #
That made a lot of sense to me, writing songs. Let your personality out.
That's been quite a strong influence on myself.
# Crying over you... #
I'm totally amazed that so many artists today
still use Roy as their inspiration.
Well, I guess...
Rarrrr!
# Pretty woman, stop a while
# Pretty woman, talk a while... #
The way he was and the way he sang made him dead cool.
He was cool, all right. He was very cool.
My lasting memory of Roy will be him walking down the stairs coming to dinner.
All of us were already down.
So looking at Roy in his black shirt, black trousers and his dark glasses.
We all watched Roy coming down the staircase.
It was like, "Wow!" You know, The Big O.
# Only the lonely
# Know the way I feel... #
At the very end, when he was asked how he wanted to be remembered,
he paused for a minute and he said,
"Hm. I just would like to be remembered."
# There goes my baby
# There goes my heart... #
Rock'n'roll has this image
of...of rebel music.
And, er...
And in some sort of juvenile quarters, in which I'd include myself,
we often... that's often a licence for rudeness.
You know? Or egocentric behaviour, you know?
But actually the real rebels to me always had manners.
This man who had written such extraordinary songs
and a real innovator in popular music,
and, you know, truly a great, great singer,
would be, you know, humble.
# I'm going back some day Gonna stay on Blue Bayou... #
I will always try to do the same, but I doubt
if I could match his courteous self.
# Ah, that girl of mine by my side
# Silver moon and the evening tide... #
A simple guy who had incredible talent who just worked at his craft.
If I even get remotely close to his legacy, I'd be a happy guy.
#..happen in my dreams
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams.
# Still missing you California Blue
# Still missing you
# California Blue
# Still missing you
# California Blue! #
People that are completely unique, you don't so much admire them as marvel at them.
# Only the lonely... #
I was sitting in the living room with my mum and my auntie and he came on the radio.
What a voice, yeah, fantastic. I always liked his stuff, bought his records.
My mum and my auntie were going, "Oh, he's too sexy!"
# I remember that you said
# Goodbye... #
All of us in studying the craft of making a good record
had studied Roy's work.
In many ways, my whole life has been fashioned subconsciously by him.
The way he was and the way he sang made him dead cool.
Pretty difficult to find in Glasgow, when you look about shops and want a pair of roll-ups and sunglasses.
# Golden days before they end... #
I think Roy and England had a love affair. I mean, Roy loved the British and the British loved Roy.
APPLAUSE
INTRO TO "Pretty Woman"
# Pretty woman, walkin' down the street... #
By the 1980s, Roy Orbison's status as a living legend was well and truly confirmed
when some big names in music queued up to be in the backing band for his Black And White Night concert.
Roy and I talked about doing a show that would be a performance show for Roy.
So we set a time finally,
September 1987.
# I couldn't help but see, pretty woman... #
It had been a while since people had focused on Roy's music in this way.
A lot of care was taken to do the songs justice, as the show does.
# W-w-wow... #
I'm being asked all the time how this wonderful cast came together.
Everybody just seemed to be available at that particular time.
If we had done it a month before or later, I don't think everybody could have been there.
I don't think the entire ensemble was put together until we were all on the set at the Coconut Grove.
'I know Bruce Springsteen arrived at the very last minute.'
- How did you end there?
- 'My big memory of that night'
was Bruce arriving for the sound check and then realising
that his memory of the songs was not the same as the ability to play them.
- # Sweet dream, baby... #
- And then you go...
# Sweet dream... #
'When he looked at the charts and realised there were odd counts in some of the songs...'
I have an image of him sitting with his guitar with the head... like a cassette Walkman,
comparing what he had obviously memorised over a couple of decades since the records came out
to what was written on the page and closing the distance between the two things to play on these songs.
It's the measure of how much he loved Roy cos he was really dedicated.
# Sweet dreams, baby
# Oh, how long must I dream? #
OK.
# Sweet dreams, baby... #
Orbison clearly inspired anyone who was anyone in music, but where did all the raw talent come from?
Born in 1936 in the small town of Vernon, Texas,
from an early age, Roy was single-minded in his pursuit of a career in music.
My mom and dad gave me a guitar when I was six years old.
I always wanted to be a singer. My father asked me, when I was about six or seven,
maybe even earlier, I don't know if I was playing the guitar or not,
but he said, "What will you be when you grow up?" I said, "A singer."
I was able to get on a radio show when I was eight years old.
An "Amateur Hour", and I showed up so often that they made me a part of the show.
When I was 14, I think, I had moved to West Texas. And I formed a group.
We were from Wink, Texas, so we were The Wink Westerners.
When we got more popular, we became The Teen Kings.
# We'll hang out and raise some fun We'll stay out till after one... #
I met him the first time in Odessa, Texas. He had a group that played on TV there and the song was Ooby Dooby.
# Ooby dooby, ooby dooby
# Ooby dooby, ooby dooby, ooby dooby... #
I made a demonstration record called Ooby Dooby.
And I sent that to Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee.
He asked me, could I be there in three days?
So I grabbed my group together and we made the record.
I dropped out of the university, the junior college I was attending,
and went on the road within two or three months.
What I thought at the time was the smallest voice was Roy Orbison.
Sam Phillips said he had to put the microphone down his throat to pick him up,
but I think Sam had the wrong kind of microphone
because his later records prove that he has not only got a great, strong voice,
but he is one of the greatest singers in our business. He saw his own potential, as did others,
and he moved to a bigger label and had bigger records.
# Pretty woman, walkin' down the street
# Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet
# Pretty woman... #
Searching for ways to fulfil that potential,
Roy looked across the Atlantic to an early '60s music culture in Britain, ready to embrace something new.
# Mercy... #
In the early '60s, I worked for Decca
as a promotion man, and my job,
apart from promoting records, was to look after American artists in London. I was 21. It was a dream job.
# Are you lonely just like me?
# W-w-wow...
# Pretty woman, stop awhile
# Pretty woman... #
Very American, southern, polite, and that was my initial impression of Roy.
Very softly spoken, polite, appreciative. He was a gentleman.
A real gentleman actually.
It was that kind of rather sweet, southern states of America charm that he had.
# Pretty paper
# Pretty ribbons of blue
# Wrap your presents
# To your darling from you
# Pretty pencils
# To write... #
He would invariably come with his wife Claudette and his boys.
They'd have a little apartment.
I would spend a lot of time with them as a family cos they were very family.
And he loved having the boys around, he loved having Claudette around.
And so I became part of their family.
# Downtown shoppers
# Christmas is nigh... #
He always reminded me of like a preacher. He was so gentle.
Very sweet. Loved his family. He was just a lovely guy.
We were all mental. We were young and mad.
Roy was a very polite American. He was very sweet.
We were Scousers, hard cases, nutters. He was a gentleman.
We were idolising Americans at this point.
We had Cliff and we had Tommy Steele, but...
We were just kids from Liverpool who knew nothing, following Roy Orbison, a massive star,
whose songs we had sung for years. We were there with him - a dream!
# Well, I got a woman mean as she can be
# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #
The Brits were so enamoured
of American rock'n'roll.
They possibly appreciated them more than the Americans did.
The songs seemed more hip, the performances were more hip. That's what we were all about.
I think any British recording artist from that period would probably tell you the same thing.
# So ple-e-e-ease... #
Though Britain was hungry for all things American,
Roy's first UK tour would be an unexpected test of how loyal his British fans might be.
An all-English musical phenomenon was sweeping the country and Roy had to share the bill with The Beatles.
From what George told me,
they were so starved of rock'n'roll and waited for records to come out.
They knew this thing was going on in America, so it was just something that they were really hungry for.
The Beatles responded to Roy with total admiration.
I can't emphasise how much American artists were the thing to admire.
And all things American.
Before I joined The Stones, I thought he was fantastic.
Then he toured with The Beatles in '63.
The Beatles were on the tour with us - ourselves and Roy. Massive tour.
It was my first record, first No.1
and my first tour with Mr Roy Orbison who became a very dear friend.
And such a lovely guy.
# Well, I got a woman Yeah, I got a woman
# Yeah, I got a woman... #
George told me they followed Roy and they would stand in the wings listening to this big ending
and they'd be just trembling, thinking, "How are we gonna go out and follow this?"
APPLAUSE
And his last note was 47 miles high in the sky. The kids went, "Whoa!"
In spite of the fact that The Beatles were getting this huge acclaim
from the British public,
right from the word go really, from Love Me Do, it started...
When Roy came on stage,
he still had the goods to... top them.
# Just before the dawn... #
He just stood there...
And sang. That's all he did. He didn't do anything else.
I don't remember him putting one foot to the left or right.
# I can't help it
# I can't help it... #
That was what the impact was.
It was that he had the nerve... to do that.
To just stand there and let his voice do the work.
# It's too bad that all these things... #
Some people just give off this aura. They don't have to move about.
I've been trying to do it for 30 years, but it doesn't happen with me, so I stay in the shadows.
# Only in dreams... #
In my case, when you see me perform,
what happens is that I sing and the audience watches me do that.
# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #
On opening night, I had between seven to 15, 20 encores.
Paul and John grabbed me by the arms and said, "Yankee, go home!"
They wouldn't let me take my last curtain call but it was in good fun.
And that voice, my God! It used to annoy me, it was so good.
# Each place we go
# So afraid... #
He'd sing Runnin' Scared and his mouth would go... # Just runnin' scared... #
Like this, this tiny little movement of the mouth.
And he'd get to the end of that song where it goes up and up and up and his mouth still wasn't moving!
Not a lot. Not like, "I'm really gonna give it the full whack."
He'd still stand there and his mouth would open slightly more.
Then out would come this incredible note and I think that was what was so thrilling.
His modesty, in combination with his vocal prowess, was quite something to see.
# You loved him so... #
He sounded different from what we'd ever heard before. Elvis didn't do that.
And just a difference in sound that man made, that's why he was so popular.
# If he came back
# Which one would you choose? #
I never had any formal training. I think maybe it's just that I might be a baritone
with a real high range, two and a half octaves or so, but I never checked it.
# His head in the air
# Oh, my heart was breaking Which one would it be?
# You turned around
# And walked away with me. #
I started singing this way because I was writing songs
and I wrote the melody that I heard in my head
and then I had to sing those notes as well. I didn't know how high or low you were supposed to go!
# I could smile for a while... #
when I tried to sing along with it, of course,
it sounded like a wounded duck!
Because of his range.
And it was something to sing along with to learn how to sing.
#..couldn't tell
# That I'd been cry-y-ying... #
If you could sing along with it,
you became aware of how to make your voice do things
that we might not have understood.
# Left me standing all alone Alone and crying... #
There was something in Roy's voice
that was completely unique to him,
which was obviously a good thing because it was hard to emulate.
It had a crying sound to it. It almost was like a controlled cry.
His performance would just tear your heart out.
He could...
He could express all that emotion.
And, uh...
He was really different. Really different than anybody else.
# I love you even more than I did before
# But, darling, what can I do-o-o?
# For you don't love me
# And I'll always be
# Cry-y-y-ying over you... #
I think Roy's voice is like an opera voice, only sexy.
Opera voices... To me they're not sexy because of the music they're singing.
But Roy doing rock'n'roll and blues and blue notes, with that kind of opera voice,
that made it really different and put an opera slant on a rock'n'roll track.
It's wonderful and it's sad at the same time
because that's the inflection he puts into the soulfulness of his voice.
He's got marvellous soul. He was probably a soul singer before any of them.
# Crying
# O-o-o-o-o-o...
..ver you-u-u! #
Like Elvis said, "The best singer in the world right there, Roy Orbison."
He was the best singer of all.
# Golden days before they end... #
Roy's entry into the British music scene had been a triumph
with It's Over topping the UK charts in 1964,
but personal tragedy would soon threaten to end Roy's career.
In 1966, his wife Claudette was killed in a motorbike accident
and there was even more heartbreak to come.
He had this beautiful boy called Roy DeWayne. I used to take him to the zoo.
I loved his company. He was a really sweet kid.
I remember once I came back to the promotion offices, the Decca offices,
and Roy DeWayne, I'd exhausted him.
He must have been about six or seven. He wasn't a baby.
And I'd had to carry him back to the office. He was so exhausted, he fell asleep.
I remember his little head on my shoulder.
# But, oh, what will you do? #
And then he got... burnt to death in that fire.
# We're through... #
We'd been playing the Birmingham theatre for a week.
It was September, '68.
The following day we were going to do a last performance, a concert in Bournemouth.
Then he was flying back to the US. That was the end of the tour.
I got a call at 3am, local time in England.
# Send falling stars that seem to cry... #
He was on tour in England and got the news that his house had burned and he'd lost two of his boys.
I remember thinking, "How is that...
"..man gonna cope with that?"
# It breaks your heart in two... #
He stayed in seclusion for quite a while.
We made contact and let him know we cared and were concerned
and...it was a long time until I saw Roy
because it wasn't something that he was wanting to talk about.
To be quite honest, I really thought at that particular point in time that he...
..that we would never see him again.
He had not really worked since Claudette had died.
However, I did get another call saying that he was coming back.
To a large extent, Roy's return had been made possible by someone he had fallen in love with before the fire.
We started dating and six weeks later the house fire happened in Hendersonville.
I think it was such a gift for him to have fallen in love with me before,
so he did have a focus. It gave him a chance to create a life that he really wanted
and that was one of a real stable family and to have more kids.
You know, Roy had just such an incredible gentle strength.
He scaled the heights and the lows.
# Lonely rivers sigh... #
I arrived in December of '68
in Tennessee.
And then we travelled in America and we got married in March.
We had Roy Kelton Junior, who was born in 1970, and Alex in '74,
and we had Wesley from the marriage with Claudette.
If you would have seen Roy with the kids, you'd never have suspected that he'd lost two kids
in a house fire while he was touring in England.
# Time goes by... #
He came through it in a really great way, a very surprising way.
He came back stronger than ever after this terrible loss of his two boys.
He came back with all of the determination and the will
to go ahead and be the great artist he is.
INTRO TO "Pretty Woman"
As the '70s dawned, a new-look Roy returned again and again to tour for his UK fans.
And, of course, the Orbison family went, too.
# Pretty woman walking down the street... #
When it was tour time, we all went. Nannies, everybody just went... out on the road.
Baby formulas, baby cribs, perambulators, whatever it took.
You know?
Mercy!
We would be, tours or no tours, probably four or five months out of the year in London.
We practically lived here in the '70s, and loved it.
# Pretty woman
# You look lovely as can be... #
He loved England. He loved the British people. Something about them Roy liked.
I think it was a love affair. Roy loved England.
He loved everything about it.
He loved the food - and that was tough to love in the '60s!
He came up to my house in the Midlands
and he brought with him,
he showed me in his trunk. "Look what I've brought!"
And he'd got, like, four sets of pie and mash.
You know, for everybody. Brought from London.
# Pretty woman, say you'll stay... #
Roy, I think, just loved the English way of life.
He would love to listen to accents, see places in Scotland, visit castles.
And walk the hills. Nut case!
We were in bed, he was walking the hills! He just loved Britain. And we loved him.
# Pretty woman... #
He was very real. He wasn't slick and he wasn't showbizzy.
He didn't have a patter. He didn't... He wasn't a schmoozy kind of guy.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate you coming tonight, very much. We're happy to be here. Hope you are.
He was that same person, onstage and offstage.
It was never about ego.
You know, it was just about being himself.
# Only the lonely
# Know the way I feel tonight... #
It's inherent in the British nature
to admire modesty,
especially when it's accompanied with a great talent.
# There goes my baby... #
He was a shy man,
a family man, a quiet man.
Who he was was just as much a part of everything as what he was singing.
# Know why-y-y
# I cry... #
By the time we got married, all that was important was to have a great relationship
and to live life
and to sort of mend those incredible painful times
and to really enjoy life and do what he felt he was called on this earth for.
# Yeah, a woman.. #
He said, "For that I'll go anywhere. Smallest club, biggest arenas."
THRASHING GUITARS
Though Roy still had a loyal following, the mid-'70s saw a change in the British music scene.
The rejection of the mainstream and the stripped-down instrumentation of punk rock seemed, at first glance,
to leave little room for The Big O.
# Pretty woman Won't you pardon me?
# Pretty woman I couldn't help but see
# Pretty woman, you look lovely... # See, I can't get up there!
When I was in the Sex Pistols, if you were a closet music fan, like myself,
there were loads of bands I'd have got hung for if it had gotten out that I liked them.
Would he come under that umbrella that it's old hat and you shouldn't be liking them?
We were against all that nonsense.
I don't think that is the case.
I don't think he ever fell into that bag of being out of flavour.
When I was growing up in the '70s, Roy was kind of an anachronism.
He was completely out of kilter with the times and, em...
People I was hanging out with didn't have Roy Orbison albums. They just didn't.
He was from a different era.
But then as the '70s begat punk rock,
there became an interest in the '50s.
I think punk rock was a '50s thing, in a way. A rebel without a cause.
The short haircuts, the stance of Elvis, stripping things down to the bone.
So it was through the door that punk rock opens that Roy Orbison walks into my life.
You have to remember, Roy didn't get to be Roy Orbison by being... like anything but outside the norm.
Those guys in Memphis, when they created rockabilly,
they didn't create rockabilly by being the boy next door.
# Just running scared
# Feeling low... #
Although he was right in there at the very beginning with Jerry Lee and Elvis,
I think because he was so unique, his particular type of singing,
he didn't really come in or out of fashion.
And when rock'n'roll came to England, and then English music went back to America,
Roy was sort of outside of that.
# If he came back
# Which one would you choose? #
I think birds liked his music more than blokes. But he wasn't a pansy,
singing songs about being hurt by some bird and his feelings, you know?
# His head in the air
# My heart was breaking Which one... #
It's not a sissy thing for a man to sing about emotions.
It's real. And I think everybody can relate to that.
He does it in such a way that is so open, he opens his heart completely.
Not being a wimp.
I think that was the magnificent part about the singer and the songwriter Roy Orbison.
He turned something that could have been a weakness into a strength.
It was very unusual at the time. Since then, everybody's crying like a tart.
But in them days it was quite bold to say he cried.
He was one of the first Top 40 artists
to take away or veer off from the traditional way of saying things.
Which he did in those classic songs.
I had to write the songs that I wanted to sing because no one else really would at the time.
Then I thought since I wrote them I might sing them better than the next person. It goes like that.
What the style is is basically me and my personal taste.
Roy the singer, people talk about all the time. Everybody curtsies to the voice and so they should.
The thing people don't talk about enough, as far as I'm concerned,
is how innovative this music was, how radical in terms of its songwriting.
I don't think in terms of two verses and a chorus
or the accepted method of songwriting. Wherever I want to go, that's where I go.
# In dreams I walk... #
The classic pop structure is, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus,
middle eight, chorus, end. I mean most pop songs in the world are like that.
And then you hear In Dreams.
# In dreams you're mine
# All of... #
I can't remember the structure, but it's like A, B, C, D, E, F, G! I mean, nothing repeats!
From those odd proportions comes the tension and from that comes the emotional impact
that takes you somewhere unexpected.
# But just before the dawn... #
He slowly built it from nothing and into this huge climax
and then it went into another part which was even better. That's what I liked about his songs.
# I can't help it I can't help it if I cry... #
And that's really hard to do as a songwriter.
The ability to just have the music flow with the storyline.
Very few people could do that.
#..all these things Can only happen... #
What you end up with is a pop song that broke every rule.
And...and won.
It's like a classical composition.
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams. #
I was at a classical concert one night
and this Schumann song started that was in the programme.
And I said, "This is the actual melody of a Roy Orbison song!"
# You know I can't help myself
# And now I'm crawling back... #
Roy's song goes... # Only you and you alone Can keep me crawling back
# After all you've done to me The way you've turned me down
# I still will be your clown Because I love you...
# I still will be your clown Because I love you... #
And the Schumann song goes... HUMS THE SAME MELODY
It has a very similar shape, you know.
# You know I would die for you.. #
I suppose like anybody of his age, he could have turned on the radio and heard some gracious melodies.
It doesn't fit in with the other things about his music, as I understand it.
And those early records on Sun were of their time and good records, but they were rock'n'roll records
and at a certain point he started writing these ballads that are not like anything else.
# Crawling back to you... #
Roy was the real thing. In a time when very few people wrote their own material.
There was so much soul in that music and mystery.
And it was. It was mystery music.
They were very dramatic songs and he was kind of dramatic, too.
He was very dark and always in black and the glasses.
# Wild hearts run out of time
# And you'll need a love like mine
# To show you hope is there... #
I never knew why he wore the shades. I think he thought he had weak eyes, or something.
# Wild hearts run out of time. #
I simply left my clear pair on the aeroplane when I toured with The Beatles in '63.
By the time the pictures came back and he'd played a couple of nights,
he never changed. He always wore sunglasses every night he played for the rest of his life.
# Don't let the bright lights burn you... #
Buddy Holly made it OK to wear prescription glasses onstage.
And then Roy made it cool to wear prescription sunglasses. They're still cool today.
# Wild hearts run out of time
# When you're up against the night... #
It's very common for people to wear dark glasses on TV now, but I can't remember anybody before him.
There was a reason why he did it, but it gave him a mysteriousness and they played that up quite a bit.
The image and music together, it went together.
Black sunglasses and mystery.
# You'll need a love like mine... #
There was certainly something dark and a little bit... It was menacing, in an odd sort of way.
# A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman
# Tiptoes to my room every night... #
Roy's records suddenly started to appear in movies
in the early '80s. Most notably in Blue Velvet.
The shock of hearing a song like that in a different context, juxtaposed with this very dark scene,
it heightened what was already in there, this mysterious, slightly unsettling quality the songs have.
# I softly say
# A silent prayer... #
Things like Running Scared and In Dreams were so dense and evocative and dark and cinematic.
It just had a stranglehold on the dark side of life.
"Candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman". Where does that come from?
# In dreams I walk with you... #
I was thinking all along that it was Crying that would be in Blue Velvet
and I needed to get the record cos I heard it on the radio.
So I got Roy's Greatest Hits.
And...
So I put it on and I was going through it and In Dreams came up
and I completely forgot about Crying and In Dreams was just, you know, perfect.
# A candy-coloured clown they call the Sandman
# Tiptoes to my room every night
# Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper, "Go to sleep..." #
Dennis Hopper was supposed to sing it and so I got him the music and told him to learn the lyrics
and practise. And I thought he was memorising it.
And, uh, Dean Stockwell is a good friend of Dennis's,
He said he would work with Dennis, so I pictured the two of them going and Dennis having it down.
And in the process, you know, Dennis had kind of...
burned himself pretty bad from his past living and wasn't able to memorise these things.
#..of you
# In dreams I walk with you... #
But Dean memorised it, so when we started rehearsing the scene,
where the song was supposed to be, at a certain point
the two of them were sort of singing and Dennis just dropped out and was just watching Dean.
And Dean was letter perfect.
And it just was so obvious what was supposed to happen.
All right. Let's hit the road!
I heard rumours that after the film was released
Roy saw it and was upset about...
That song meant something to Roy and it didn't mean what it was in the film.
There was such a... sexual conflict going on in his songs.
They weren't about holding hands.
They were about... There was a grind to them.
There was a sweatiness, a longing, an anxiousness about them. They were basically songs about sex.
# It's too bad... #
Then he saw it again and changed his mind and appreciated it from a different point of view.
So by the time I met Roy, he was pretty happy about Blue Velvet.
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams... #
I'd had David Lynch's soundtrack to Blue Velvet
and I had it on repeat. It was going round and round.
And it kept stopping, appropriately, on In Dreams.
I couldn't sleep and this song was going through my head.
When I woke up the next day, I had a song in my head, which I presumed was another Roy Orbison song.
I looked for it and couldn't find it.
Maybe...maybe I'd just written it!
So I took it down to the soundcheck and I played the tune to the rest of the band. They really liked it.
I said, "It's like a Roy Orbison song. Is it?"
They said, "Yeah, yeah." And we played the concert,
then after the show I was sitting with the guitar again, trying to finish the song.
They said, "You really are going on about this song." I said, "It's really in my head. Mystery Girl."
I was trying to finish it. And this sounds like horseshit, but there was a knock at the door
and John, our security guy, said, "There's Roy Orbison and his wife, Barbara, outside.
"Can I bring them in? They'd really like to meet you."
So the band looked at me like...
I'd either been winding them up or I had some voodoo in me.
My wife and kiddies had been to see U2,
and told me about them. I hadn't heard them or seen them.
I went to one of their concerts in London when I was there
with fresh ears and...
I wasn't expecting anything. I just went with an open mind.
He said in his very quiet voice, "Really liked the show. Can't tell you why I liked it, but I did.
"You wouldn't have a song for me? Or shall we write a song together? I'm just into what you're doing."
So everyone's falling round. No one could quite believe their ears.
And I played him there and then this song, She's A Mystery To Me.
In 1988, Roy was working on his album Mystery Girl with producer Jeff Lynne,
who had also worked with George Harrison. During long hours in the studio, George and Jeff often talked
about the line-up of their dream group. As Lefty Wilbury, Roy Orbison was about to become
the ultimate musician's musician.
When George and Jeff were in the studio working together
they sometimes had this thing, "We could have a band."
George would say, "We should have a group." I'd go, "Yeah, that'd be good. Let's have a group."
And it was, literally, "Who do you want in it?" I said, "I'd love Roy Orbison."
He said, "I want Bob Dylan in it." And it was just like that, like a pair of schoolkids.
It wasn't a contrived thing that happened. They weren't out to make a band.
It just happened. One event led to another.
I was working with Tom at the time and George knew Tom by then.
We said, "Let's have Tom!" All that remained was for George to ask them to be in it.
They all did. The one we had to convince last was Roy.
We went to see Roy in concert out in Anaheim somewhere. We all piled in a car.
# Don't relax I want elbows and backs I wanna see everybody from behind
# Cos you're working for the man... #
It was a brilliant show. All the people were going mad.
We were all going mad. Like, "Yeah! Give it some!"
And George was so keen. It was exciting. It was the first time I'd ever seen Roy perform.
We went back and George said to him, "Do you wanna be in our group?"
It was kinda like a proposal. I think George even got down on his knee!
And he sort of went, "Yeah, I suppose. I suppose so. Yeah."
And he offered to join there and then. So he was in the Traveling Wilburys then,
from that moment.
# Reputation's changeable
# Situation's tolerable
# But, baby, you're adorable
# Handle me with care
# I'm so tired of being lonely
# I still have some love to give
# Won't you show me that you really care?
# Everybody's got somebody to lean on... #
Sometimes we sing the same song just to see who sounded good. That was a lot of fun.
And George would kind of audition us, which was really intimidating
because Roy Orbison would sing the song and then they'd send you out to sing it.
Damn! That's really intimidating.
# Last night
# Thinking 'bout last night... #
They had a lot of fun, but they didn't goof around. It wasn't just one big party.
They were working.
There wasn't a lot of deciding what to do, not a lot of time spent planning out anything.
We just wrote the best songs we could write and sang them as best we could.
- She was long and tall.
- Or short and fat.
- She was dressed to kill. - That's
good. - She was out to give me a thrill.
Whichever way I looked around there was some conspiracy!
'And he was funny. That was the thing George enjoyed about him the most.'
He seemed to be a tragic figure or there was tragedy attached or projected to Roy,
but in reality he was very funny and...
and that was the sort of secret Roy that he loved to be around.
Sometimes Roy would have George and the guys in hysterics.
He loved Monty Python. That was his favourite comedy stuff
and he could do all the sketches on his own.
He had a slightly southern lilt and yet he would recite lines from Monty Python.
He'd break into a sketch of one of Python's routines, playing all the parts,
and end up giggling like a maniac and we'd all start giggling.
# I'm so tired of being lonely... #
He was surrounded by all the friends he really loved
and they really loved him. The basis of the Wilbury record was lots of laughter
and just lots of fun and incredible creativity.
# Every time I look into your lovely eyes... #
And so it came towards '88, Thanksgiving,
and we had all decided that we would go to George and Olivia's house in England
and spend Thanksgiving with them.
# I drift away
# I pray that you... #
Roy and I got stuck in Paris and never made it.
And Roy flew back to America because he had to fulfil two shows he had booked in Boston
and in Ohio. And those shows were like long-time booked.
# Baby... #
And I decided to stay in Europe.
# Every time I hold you I begin to understand... #
The last thing I heard from Roy was a message on my answer phone
saying, "Hey, Jeff, sorry I couldn't see you this trip, but I'm all Wilburied out."
He was really tired from doing all the interviews and he had his own album coming out.
He said, "I'll see you when I get back over in a few weeks."
# No one can do the things you do... #
I got a call one night from Roy that basically said
he had given in to come back to England. George had asked over and over for a second Wilbury video.
And I said, "Are you really sure?"
He said, "When I get off that plane, I know your smiling green eyes will be waiting for me.
"For that I will do anything."
So that was the last time I ever talked with him.
# Pretty ribbons of blue... #
The next thing, there was a phone call, a terrible phone call.
I picked the phone up at 6am.
# Pretty pencils to write... #
The phone call that you always dread getting
was one of those early morning phone calls to say Roy had died.
# Pretty ribbons of blue. #
Roy Orbison, one of the first and greatest rock performers,
has died from a heart attack. He was 52. In his prime, he topped bills above The Beatles
and this year was in the charts again in a supergroup with George Harrison and Bob Dylan.
Roy would have liked us to have continued to do The End of The Line. It's a very optimistic song.
We love Roy and life flows on within you and without you.
He's around, you know, in his astral body.
# Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays... # We played it like he was there.
We'd all look at the armchair and there would be Lefty and it was just his guitar.
# Well, it's all right If you got someone to love
# Well, it's all right Everything will work out fine... #
If Roy had been giving you the interview today, and you asked him about his songs,
what was his best song ever, he'd have said, "I haven't written it yet."
# I'm just glad to be here Happy to be alive... #
The artists today that have come along in the last 20 years
probably don't remember the Wilburys in '88 had a number one album.
# It's all right Even if you're old and grey... #
My favourite Roy Orbison song has got to be Crying.
It's something I want to put on
when I'm feeling bad about something, some heartache.
He just touches me with his voice.
# I thought that I was over you... #
One of the things I like about his songwriting and his lyrics
is that I think, ultimately,
he's letting his guard down.
All his songs, I think... I'd be made up to write any song like that.
But it would have to be my favourite, Crying. I'd love to have written that song. Amazing.
# For you don't love me... #
That made a lot of sense to me, writing songs. Let your personality out.
That's been quite a strong influence on myself.
# Crying over you... #
I'm totally amazed that so many artists today
still use Roy as their inspiration.
Well, I guess...
Rarrrr!
# Pretty woman, stop a while
# Pretty woman, talk a while... #
The way he was and the way he sang made him dead cool.
He was cool, all right. He was very cool.
My lasting memory of Roy will be him walking down the stairs coming to dinner.
All of us were already down.
So looking at Roy in his black shirt, black trousers and his dark glasses.
We all watched Roy coming down the staircase.
It was like, "Wow!" You know, The Big O.
# Only the lonely
# Know the way I feel... #
At the very end, when he was asked how he wanted to be remembered,
he paused for a minute and he said,
"Hm. I just would like to be remembered."
# There goes my baby
# There goes my heart... #
Rock'n'roll has this image
of...of rebel music.
And, er...
And in some sort of juvenile quarters, in which I'd include myself,
we often... that's often a licence for rudeness.
You know? Or egocentric behaviour, you know?
But actually the real rebels to me always had manners.
This man who had written such extraordinary songs
and a real innovator in popular music,
and, you know, truly a great, great singer,
would be, you know, humble.
# I'm going back some day Gonna stay on Blue Bayou... #
I will always try to do the same, but I doubt
if I could match his courteous self.
# Ah, that girl of mine by my side
# Silver moon and the evening tide... #
A simple guy who had incredible talent who just worked at his craft.
If I even get remotely close to his legacy, I'd be a happy guy.
#..happen in my dreams
# Only in dreams
# In beautiful dreams.
# Still missing you California Blue
# Still missing you
# California Blue
# Still missing you
# California Blue! #