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# Only the lonely

# Only the lonely

(CHEERING)

# Know the way I... People that are completely unique -

you don't so much admire them as just marvel at them.

# Only the lonely... #

I was sitting in the living room with me mum and me aunty,

and it came on the radio.

(SIGHS) What a voice. Yeah. Fantastic.

And I always liked his stuff, bought his records.

Me mum and me aunty were going, "Ooh, it's too sexy!"

# Only in dreams

NARRATOR: Sexy AND cool,

Roy Orbison was perhaps the most humble and influential rock star

the world ever knew.

# Dreams

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.

# Dreams... #

# I'm going back some day

# Gonna stay on Blue Bayou

# Where the folks are fine

# And the world is mine

# Blue Bayou... #

NARRATOR: His unique voice, his unique sound,

his totally unique appearance

made Roy Orbison one of a kind, especially in Britain,

where his talent was embraced and supported by rock royalty.

# Golden days before they end

# Whisper... #

I think Roy and England had a love affair.

Roy loved the British and the British loved Roy.

(WILD CHEERING)

(PRETTY WOMAN INTRO)

# Pretty woman

# Walkin' down the street... #

NARRATOR: By the 1980s,

Roy Orbison's status as a living legend was well and truly confirmed,

when some of the biggest names in the music business queued up

to be in his backing band for his Black And White Night concert.

# ..as good as you

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 quite this way.

A lot of care was taken to do

the songs justice the way I believe the show does.

(PRETTY WOMAN INSTRUMENTAL)

# Rrrrrrrrrr! #

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 would had done it a month before, a month later,

I don't think everybody could have been there.

(ROCK AND ROLL INSTRUMENTAL)

ELVIS COSTELLO: I don't think the entire ensemble

was put together until we were all on the set of

the Cocoanut Grove in the Ambassador Hotel.

I know Bruce Springsteen arrived at the very last minute.

How did you get that?

My big memory of that night was

Bruce arriving, I think, for the sound check,

and then realising that his memory of the songs

was not the same as the ability to play them.

# Sweet dreams...

Then you go: (FALSETTO) # Sweet dreams

You might wanna go under me. Yeah, I may have to!

When he actually looked at the charts and realised

that there were odd counts in some of the songs,

I have an image of him sitting with his guitar,

with, 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 frantically closing the distance between the two things

if he was gonna play on a couple of these songs.

I thought that's the measure of how much he loved Roy

because he was really dedicated.

BOTH: # Sweet dreams, baby

# Oh, how long

# Must I dream? #

OK.

BOTH: # Sweet dreams, baby... #

NARRATOR: Orbison clearly inspired anyone who was anyone in music.

But just where did all the raw talent come from?

Born in 1936 in the small town of Vernon in Texas,

from an early age Roy was single-minded

in his pursuit of a career in music.

ROY ORBISON: 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 whether I was playing the guitar at the time or not,

but he said, "Know what you're gonna be when you grown up?"

and I said, "I'll be 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.

And when I was 14, I think,

I moved to West Texas and formed a group.

Well, we were from Wink, Texas, and so we were the Wink Westerners,

and when we got a bit 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 and Midland, Texas.

He had a group that played

on the local television show there,

and the song was called Ooby Dooby.

# Ooby dooby, ooby dooby

# Ooby dooby, dooby, dooby, dooby, dooby

# Dooby doo... #

ROY ORBISON: I made a demonstration record called Ooby Dooby,

and sent that then to Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee.

He asked me - could I be there in three days?

And so I grabbed my group together and we made the record

and I dropped out of the university

- the junior college that I was attending then -

and went on the road within two or three months.

JOHNNY CASH: What I thought at the time

was the smallest voice

was Roy Orbison.

Sam Phillips says 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's not only got a great, strong voice,

but he's one of the greatest singers in our business.

But 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... #

NARRATOR: Searching for ways to fulfil that potential,

Roy looked across the Atlantic to an early-'60s music culture in Britain

that was more than 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 all the American artists who came over to London.

I was 21 years old, and it was a dream job.

# Are you lonely, just like me?

# Rrrrrrrrrr!

# Pretty woman, stop a while

# Pretty woman... #

Very American, Southern, polite -

and that was my initial impression of Roy.

Very softly spoken, very polite, very appreciative.

He was a gentleman - a real gentleman, actually.

And that's what he had - 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 - I love... #

He would invariably come with his wife Claudette

and his boys.

They'd have a little apartment,

and 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

# And there he sits... #

He always reminded me of a preacher, he was so gentle.

Very, very sweet. Loved his kids, loved the family.

He was just a lovely guy, I mean, we were all mental.

We were young and mad. Roy was very...

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.

You know, 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'd sung for years,

and we're there with him,

and watching him - a dream.

# Well, I got a woman as mean as she can be

# Some-a-times I think she's almost mean as me... #

The Brits were so enamoured of American...

of rock and roll, um...

they possibly appreciated them more than the Americans did.

TONY KING: The songs seemed more hip and the performances were more hip,

and that's what we were all about.

I think any British recording artist from that period

would probably tell you the same thing.

# THE BEATLES: Love Me Do

NARRATOR: Though Britain was hungry for all things American,

Roy's first UK tour would turn out to be an unexpected test

of just how loyal his British fans might be.

An all-English musical phenomenon was sweeping the country.

Roy found himself sharing the bill with The Beatles.

OLIVIA HARRISON: You know, from what George told me,

they were so starved of rock and roll

and how they waited for the records to come out

and they knew there was this thing going on in America.

So for them, it was just something that they were really hungry for.

TONY KING: The Beatles responded to Roy with total admiration.

I can't emphasise enough how much

American artists were the thing to admire,

you know, and all things American.

Before I joined the Stones in the late-'50s,

I thought he was fantastic.

And then he toured with The Beatles. 63?

(WILD CHEERING)

GERRY MARSDEN: The Beatles were on the tour with us,

the Beats, ourselves and Roy - massive tour.

1963 was a great time for me.

It was my first record,

first number one

and my first tour with

Mr Roy Orbison, who became a very dear friend,

and such a lovely guy.

# I got a woman

# Yeah, I got a woman

# Yeah, I got a woman... #

OLIVIA HARRISON: George told me they followed Roy

and they would stand in the wings listening to this big ending,

and he said they'd just be trembling thinking,

"How on earth are we gonna go out and follow this?"

(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)

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 - didn't do anything else!

I don't remember him putting one foot to the left

or one foot to the right, to be honest with you.

# I can't help it

# I can't help it, if I... #

That was what the impact was -

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... #

BILL WYMAN: Some people can do that - they 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. (LAUGHS)

# Only

# In dreams... #

ROY ORBISON: Well, in my case,

when you see me perform, it's -

what happens is 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,

and Paul and John grabbed me by the arms and said,

"Yankee, go home," whatever, and wouldn't let me

take my last curtain call. But it was all in good fun.

GERRY MARSDEN: And that voice -

my God! - used to annoy me it was so good.

# Each place we go

# I'm so afraid... #

TONY KING: He'd sing Running Scared, and his mouth would go...

"just running scared", like this - you know? -

this tiny little movement of the mouth,

but, phwoar... And he'd get to the end of that song,

where it goes up and up and up and up,

and his mouth still wasn't moving, not a lot,

not like, "ahr", you know,

I'm really gonna give it the full whack.

He'd just still stand there and his mouth would open slightly more,

and then out would come this incredible note.

And I think that's what was so thrilling

because his modesty

in combination with his vocal prowess

was quite something to see.

# You love him so

GERRY MARSDEN: The way he sang was different

than we'd ever heard before.

Elvis didn't do that, but Roy did.

And I think just the difference in sound

that that man made, that's why he's so popular.

# If he came back

# Which one would you choose?

ROY ORBISON: I never had

any formal training, and 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've 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.

So then I had to sing those notes as well. I didn't know how high

or low you were supposed to go, so I went where I wanted to.

# I could smile for a while

# But I saw you last night

# You held my hand so tight

# As you stopped to say hello

# Oh, you wished me well

# You couldn't tell

# That I'd been crying

# Over you

# Crying

# Over you

# Then you said, "So long"

# Left me standing

# All alone

# Alone and crying... #

There was something about Roy's voice

that was completely unique to him,

which was obviously a good thing because it was hard to emulate,

that had this sort of - and I always thought

it had a crying sound to it.

It almost was like a controlled cry.

# The touch of your hand

# Can start me crying

# I thought that I

# Was over you

# But it's true

# So true

# I love you even more

# Than I did before

# But, darling, what can I do?

# For you don't love me

# And I'll always be

(FALSETTO) # Cry-y-y-ing

# Over you... #

I think Roy's voice is like an opera voice, only sexy.

Opera voices are kind of - to me, they're not sexy.

It's just the music they're singing.

But Roy doing rock and roll and blues,

you know, blue notes, and things with that kind of opera voice -

now, that made it really different,

and it put like an opera slant on a rock-and-roll track.

It's wonderful and it's sad at the same time

because that's the inflection,

and what he puts into the soulfulness of his voice.

You know, he's got marvellous soul. I think, that's...

He was probably a soul singer before any of them, you know?

# Cry-ing

# O-o-o-ver

# You-ooo-oooooooo #

JEFF LYNNE: You know, like Elvis said, "Ladies and gentlemen,

the best singer in the world right there - Roy Orbison."

Probably cos he WAS the best singer of all.

# Golden days before they end

NARRATOR: Roy's entry into the British music scene

had been a triumph with It's Over topping the UK charts in 1964.

# Your baby won't be...

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.

TONY KING: They had this beautiful boy called Roy DeWayne.

I used to take him to the zoo

and take him around, and I loved his company.

He was like a really sweet kid.

And I remember once I came back to the promotion offices

in Great Marlborough Street - the Decca offices,

and Roy DeWayne, I'd exhausted him.

And he must have been about six or seven -

he wasn't a baby.

Anyway, I'd had to carry him back to the office

cos he was so exhausted he fell asleep, and I remember carrying him.

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-oo-oo

# We're through... #

We'd been playing the Birmingham Theatre for a week.

This was September '68,

and the following day we were gonna do the last performance,

which was a concert in Bournemouth,

and then he was going to be flying back to the US -

that was the end of the tour.

I got a call about three o'clock in the morning

local time in England.

# Send falling stars

# That seem to cry... #

JOHNNY CASH: He was on tour in England,

and he got the news over there

that his house had burned and he had lost two of his boys.

I remember thinking: How is that...

..man going to cope with that?

# It breaks your heart in two

JOHNNY CASH: 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.

Well, to be quite honest, I really thought,

at that particular point in time,

that he... that would be the...

that we would never see him again. I thought that would be...

He had not worked really since Claudette had died.

However, I did get another call saying that he was coming back.

NARRATOR: To a large extent, Roy's return had been made possible

by someone he had met and fallen in love with before the fire.

We started dating, and six weeks later

the house fire happened in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

But 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.

Roy just had such an incredible gentle strength.

He scaled the heights and the lows.

# Lonely rivers sigh

# Wait for me... #

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 then Alex in '74

and we had Wesley from the marriage with Claudette.

If you would have seen Roy with the kids,

you would have never suspected that he had lost two kids

in a house fire...

# A long, lonely time

# Time

# Goes by... #

JOHNNY CASH: They came through it in a really great way,

a very surprising way.

He came back stronger than ever

after this terrible loss of those two boys.

He came back with all of the determination

and the will to go ahead

and to be the great artist he is.

(PRETTY WOMAN INTRO)

(APPLAUSE)

NARRATOR: 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

# Walkin' down the street... #

BARBARA ORBISON: When it was tour time, we all went.

We 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.

# I couldn't help but see

# Pretty woman

# You look lovely as can be... #

He loved England. He loved the British people.

It was somehow Britain or the British people Roy that liked.

You know, I think that it was a love affair.

Roy Orbison loved... Roy loved England.

I mean, he loved everything about it.

He loved the food,

and that was tough to love in the '60s.

JEFF LYNNE: He came up to my house in the Midlands,

and he brought with him - he showed me in his trunk -

he said, "Look at this."

He had a driver, and he said, "Look what I've brought,"

and he'd got, like, four sets of pie and mash,

you know, for everybody.

Brought it all the way from London.

# Pretty woman, say you'll stay with me

Roy, I think, just loved the English way of life.

He would love to listen to accents,

and go and see places in Scotland

and go and visit castles

and walk the hills. Nutcase!

We were in bed - he was walking the hills.

He just loved Britain. He really did. And we loved him.

# Ahhhhhhhh!

# Pretty woman #

He was very real.

He wasn't slick and he wasn't show-bizzy.

He didn't have a patter. You know, he didn't...

He wasn't a schmoozy kind of guy.

(APPLAUSE) Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you coming tonight very much.

We're happy to be here. I hope you are.

BARBARA ORBISON: He was that same person, on stage and off stage.

It was never about ego,

you know? It was just about being himself.

# Only the lonely

# Dum-dum-dum dummy-doo-wah

# Know the way I feel tonight

# Ooh yay, yay, yay, yeah... #

It's inherent in the British nature

to admire modesty,

especially when it's accompanied with a great talent.

# There goes my baby

# Pum pum pum pum... #

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, like, mend those incredible painful times

and to really enjoy life

and do what he felt he was called on this earth for.

# I got a woman

# Yeah, I got a woman... #

He said, "For that, I will go anywhere -

smallest club, biggest marinas, whatever."

# I think she's almost

# Mean as me #

# SEX PISTOLS: Anarchy In The UK

NARRATOR: Though Roy still had a loyal following,

the mid-'70s saw a change in the British music scene -

the rejection of all things mainstream

and the stripped-down instrumentation of punk rock

seemed, at first glance, to leave little room for the Big O.

(ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYS PRETTY WOMAN INTRO)

# 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 who I would've probably got hung for,

if it would have gotten out that I liked at the time, you know?

Would he come under that umbrella as -

it's old hat and you shouldn't be liking him,

because we were against all that nonsense.

I don't think that is the case.

I don't think he ever fell into that bag

as being out of flavour, you know?

When I was growing up in the '70s,

Roy was kind of an anachronism, really.

He was completely out of kilter with the times,

and 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 it was...

you know, punk rock was a '50s thing,

in a way - 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 opened

that Roy Orbison walked 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 runnin' scared

# Feelin' low... #

OLIVIA HARRISON: 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 -

that he didn't really come in or out of fashion,

and I think when rock and roll came to England

and then English music went back to America,

Roy was sort of outside of that.

# His head in the air

# And my heart was breaking... #

ROBIN GIBB: It's not a sissy thing for a man to sing about emotion.

It's just what it is. It's real,

and everybody can relate to that.

And he does it in such a way that's 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 total strength.

It was really very unusual at the time.

Since then, everybody's crying like a tart,

but in them days it was quite bold to say that you 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 all those classic songs.

ROY ORBISON: I had to write the songs that I wanted to sing,

because no-one else really would at the time,

and then I thought, since I wrote them,

I might be able to sing them better than the next person.

So it kind of goes like that.

So whatever the style is

is basically me and my personal taste.

Roy the singer people talk about all the time.

Everyone 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.

When I write a song, I don't think in terms of two verses and a chorus

or the accepted method of songwriting.

I just start and, wherever I wanna go, that's where I go.

(APPLAUSE)

# In dreams, I walk...

Classic pop structure is, you know,

verse chorus, verse chorus,

middle eight, chorus, end.

Most pop songs in the world are like that.

And then you hear something like In Dreams.

# In dreams

# You're mine

# All of the time... #

I can't remember the structure, but it's something like -

A, B, C, D, E, F, G. Nothing repeats.

From those odd proportions comes the tension,

and from the tension comes the emotional impact,

that it takes you somewhere unexpected.

# Just before

# The dawn... #

He slowly built it from nothing, and built it into this huge climax,

and then it went into another part, which was even better

and got even bigger and better, and that's what I liked about his songs.

# I can't help it

# I can't help it

# If I cry... #

JOE WALSH: 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 won.

It's like a classical composition.

# Only in dreams

# In dreams

# In beautiful dreams #

I was at a classical concert one night,

and this Schumann song started - 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... #

The Roy song goes -

# Only you and you alone

# Can keep me crawling back

# After all you've done to me

# The way you put me down

# I still will be your clown

# Cos I love you #

# I still will be your clown

# Because I love you... #

And the Schumann song goes -

(HUMS MELODY)

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 maybe heard some gracious melodies there.

It doesn't fit in with any of the other things about his music.

The background in music, as I understand it,

and certainly those early records on Sun and so forth,

they were of their time, and they were good records,

but they were rock-and-roll records.

And at a certain point,

he started writing these ballads

that are just not like anything else.

# Mm-hm-hm

# Crawling back... #

Roy was the real thing,

at a time where 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 all the time.

I think he thought he had weak eyes or something.

# Wild hearts run out of time

ROY ORBISON: I simply left my clear pair on the aeroplane

when I did the tour with The Beatles and Gerry & The Pacemakers in '63.

By the time the pictures came back,

and by the time he had 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

BARBARA ORBISON: Buddy Holly made it OK

to wear prescription glasses on stage,

and then Roy made it cool to wear prescription sunglasses.

They're still cool today.

# It could be yours or mine

# It happens all the time

# Wild hearts run out of time

# Wild hearts run out of time #

# 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 Dean Stockwell was a good friend of Dennis's,

so Dean said he would work with Dennis.

And so I pictured the two of them going...

and Dennis, you know, having it down.

But in the process,

Dennis had kind of...

burned himself pretty bad

from his past living,

and he wasn't able to memorise these things.

# In dreams

# I walk with you... #

But Dean memorised it,

and so, when we started rehearsing the scene

where this song was supposed to be,

at a certain point,

the two of them were sort of singing.

At a certain point 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.

(SONG STOPS ABRUPTLY) (CASSETTE PLAYER CLICKS)

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, you know,

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, you know...

There was a grind to them. There was a sweatiness, you know.

There was a longing, an anxiousness about them.

And they were basically songs about sex.

# Before the dawn

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 had David Lynch's soundtrack to Blue Velvet,

and I kept...

I had it on repeat, and it was going round and round and round,

and kept stopping appropriately on In Dreams.

And 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

that was on the soundtrack,

and I looked for it and I couldn't find it.

I thought, "Where's this tune?

Maybe I've just written it."

So I took it down to the sound check,

and I played the tune to the rest of the band.

They really liked it.

And I said, "It's kind of like a Roy Orbison song, is it?"

And they said, "Yeah, yeah, Roy Orbison. Yeah, great. We like him."

And we played the concert and then after the show

I was sitting and I had the guitar up again

and was trying to finish the song.

And there was a knock at the door,

and John our security guy said,

"There's Roy Orbison and his wife Barbara outside.

Um...um...

Can I bring them in?

They'd really like to meet you."

So the band looked at me like I was...

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,

and I hadn't heard them or seen them.

And 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 to see and an open mind.

He said in his very quiet voice, you know,

"I really liked the show. I can't tell you why I liked it,

but I really liked it."

He said, "You wouldn't have a song for me?

Shall we write a song together?

Because I just, you know, I'm kind of into what you're doing."

So everyone's kind of falling round,

and no-one could quite believe their ears,

and I played him there and then the song She's A Mystery To Me.

# I wanna run, she's pulling me apart

NARRATOR: 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 had often talked about

the line-up of their dream group.

As Lefty Wilbury, Roy Orbison was about to become

the ultimate musician's musician.

I know that George and Jeff,

when they were in the studio working together,

had sometimes had this thing about, "Oh, yeah, we could have a band."

George would say, "We should have a group, you know?"

And I'd go, "Yeah, that would be good. Let's have a group."

And it was literally - who do you want in it?

and I said, "I'd love Roy Orbison in it,"

and he said, "I want Bob Dylan in it."

It was just like that, just like a pair of school kids, really.

It wasn't a contrived thing that happened.

They weren't out to make a band.

It just happened, you know - one event lead to another.

And I was working with Tom as well at the time,

and George knew Tom by then, and we said, "Let's have Tom as well."

All that remained was George to ask these people

if they wanted to be in it, in the group, which they all did,

and the one we had to convince last was Roy.

We went to see Roy in concert, I think out in Anaheim somewhere.

We all piled in the car and went out to see him.

# You make it on time

# Oh, don't relax

# I want elbows and backs

# I want to see everybody from behind

# Cos you're working for the man... #

It was a brilliant show, just like normal, in a theatre,

and all the people were going mad, and we were all going mad,

like, "Yeah, give it some!"

And George was so keen. It was so exciting,

and we all watched the show.

It was the first time I'd ever seen Roy perform.

We went in his dressing room afterwards,

and George said to him, "Do you want to be in our group?"

It was kind of like a proposal, you know?

I think George even got down on his knee

and said, "Will you be in our band?"

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.

# Handle me with care

# Reputations changeable

# Situations tolerable

# 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... #

TOM PETTY: Sometimes we'd sing the same song,

just to see who sounded good or if this key fits somebody.

That was a lot of fun.

George would kind of audition us,

which could be really intimidating,

because Roy Orbison would sing the song,

and then they'd send you out to sing it,

and it was like, "Well, damn, that's really intimidating."

# Last night

# Thinking about last night... #

They had a lot of fun, but they didn't goof around.

It wasn't just one big party. They were working.

# Last night...

ROY ORBISON: There wasn't a lot of deciding what to do,

not a lot of time spent planning out anything.

So we just wrote the best songs that we could write,

and sang them as best we could.

I got out of the car...

No, she was long and tall.

Or short and fat.

(LAUGHTER)

She was dressed to kill.

Yeah, that's good.

To give me a thrill

was over the hill. (LAUGHTER)

I don't think it was a conspiracy or something, but if we decided...

And he was funny - that was the thing

that George enjoyed about him the most was that

he seemed to be a tragic figure,

or there was tragedy attached or projected to Roy,

but in reality he was very funny,

and that was the sort of secret Roy

that he loved to be around.

And 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 that 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 just giggling himself,

like a maniac, giggling away, and we'd all start giggling.

# I'm so tired of being lonely

# I still have... #

He was surrounded by all friends that he really loved,

and they really loved him,

and the basis of the Wilbury record was lots of laughter

and just lots of fun

and incredible creativity.

# Every time I look

# Into your loving 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...

He had booked two shows in Boston and in Ohio,

and those shows were like long-time booked.

# You got it

# 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 answerphone

in England saying,

"Hey, Jeff, I'm sorry I couldn't see you this trip,

but I'm all about Wilbury'd out."

And he was really tired from doing all the Wilbury interviews,

and he'd got his own album coming out

at the same time called Mystery Girl.

And he said, "I'll see you when I get back.

I'll be back over in a few weeks."

# No-one can do

# The things you do... #

BARBARA: 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.

# Baby...

And I said, "Are you really sure?" and he said,

"When I get off that plane,

I know your smiling real nice will be waiting for me,"

and he said, "For that, I will do anything."

So that was the last time I ever talked with him.

(DISTANTLY) # Pretty paper

(BECOMES DISTINCT) # Pretty ribbons of blue

# Wrap your presents to your darling

# From you

# Pretty pencils

# To write - I love you

# Pretty paper

# Pretty ribbons

# Of blue #

NEWSCASTER: 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 just this year was in the charts again

in a supergroup that included George Harrison and Bob Dylan.

GEORGE HARRISON: Roy would have liked us

to have continued to do The End Of The Line.

It's a very optimistic song, and we love Roy

and life flows on within you and without you,

and he's around in his astral body.

# The end of the line # Maybe somewhere down the road

# When somebody plays...

You know, we played it like he was there,

like, we'd all look at the armchair,

and there would be Lefty,

but it was just his guitar.

# Well, it's all right

# If you got someone to love

# Well, it's all right

# Everything'll work out fine #

BARBARA: If Roy would have been giving you the interview today,

and you would have asked him about his songs -

what was his best song ever -

and he would have said, "I haven't written it yet."

# At the end of the line

# I'm just glad to be here

# Happy to be alive... #

BARBARA ORBISON: The artists today that have come along

in the last 20 years

probably don't even remember

that the Wilburys in '88 had a number-one album.

(GUITAR FINALE)

# I love you even more

# Than I did before

# But, darling, what can I do?

# For you don't love me

# And I'll always be

# Crying

# Over you

# Crying

# Over you... #

I'm totally amazed

that so many artists today

still use Roy as their inspiration.

# Over you... #

# Only the lonely

# Dum-dum-dum dummy-doo-wah

# Know the way I feel... #

At the very end, when he was asked

how he wanted to be remembered,

and he paused for a minute and he said,

"Hmm, I just would like to be remembered."

# Pretty woman, stop a while

# Pretty woman, give your smile

# To me

# Pretty woman... #

OLIVIA HARRISON: My lasting memory of Roy would be

him walking down the stairs

coming to dinner and all of us were already down,

so looking at Roy in his black shirt, black trousers

and his dark glasses, and we all stood at the bottom of the stairs

watching Roy come down the staircase.

It was like, "Wow,

you know, the Big O."

# It's too bad

# That all these things

# Can only happen

# In my dreams

# Only in dreams

# In beautiful dreams #

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(WOLF-WHISTLING)

# Still missing you

# California blue

# Still missing you

# California blue

# Still missing you

# California blue #

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