The Traveling Wilburys' Music: Every Album, Every Song

Ten tracks on Vol. 1, nine on Vol. 3, four more added when the catalog got reissued in 2007: thirty-one pieces of music in total, five music videos, and a short documentary that's the closest thing that exists to footage of this band actually working. That's the entire recorded output of one of rock's most acclaimed supergroups. It doesn't take long to get through. It rewards listening closely anyway.

The two albums

• Vol. 1 (1988): the debut, recorded almost entirely live, mostly around a single microphone. Triple platinum, a Grammy win, and the only Wilburys record to feature Roy Orbison.
• Vol. 3 (1990): the follow-up, made without Orbison and titled to skip a number nobody ever used. A different, tighter record, built by four men who now knew exactly what this project was.
• The Collection (2007): both albums back in print after most of a decade gone, with four unreleased bonus tracks, the documentary, and every music video bundled in one place.

Every song, one at a time

Every track from both albums gets its own page: who sang it, who wrote what, and the studio story behind it. Browse the full list, A to Z, or start with a few of the ones people ask about most:

• Handle With Care: the throwaway B-side that started the whole band, named after a shipping label in Bob Dylan's garage.
• End of the Line: the closing track on Vol. 1, which became an unplanned tribute to Roy Orbison within weeks of release.
• Tweeter and the Monkey Man: Dylan's sprawling, Springsteen-referencing detour, and the strangest thing on either record.
• Wilbury Twist: a deliberately silly fake dance craze that turned out, with nobody planning it, to be the band's last-ever release.

Watch and hear it

• Singles & Videos: all five official music videos, in order, with the story behind each shoot.
• The True History documentary: 24 minutes of actual footage of the band at work, and what's really in it.

Not sure where to start? Read the full band history first, or jump straight to Vol. 1 and work through it the way it was originally released.