Music / ↳ Not Alone Any More

Not Alone Any More

Written by: Credited to the full band, built specifically as a showcase for Roy Orbison Lead vocals: Roy Orbison, with backing vocals from George Harrison and Jeff Lynne Length: 6:51 (the longest track on the album) Album: Vol. 1, track 5

Every other song on Vol. 1 is a genuine band performance, five voices trading space more or less equally. "Not Alone Any More" is the one exception, and deliberately so: a gorgeous, unhurried pop ballad built to give Roy Orbison the kind of full-range showcase none of the ensemble tracks could accommodate. It's his only lead vocal on the record, and at nearly seven minutes, it's the longest thing the Wilburys ever released.

The song lets Orbison do what almost nobody else in popular music could do at the time: climb, without visible strain, into the upper register that had defined hits like "Crying" and "In Dreams" more than two decades earlier, while Harrison and Lynne's backing vocals give the arrangement room to breathe underneath him rather than compete with him. Reviewers at the time were unambiguous about what the track proved: that time had done essentially nothing to diminish Orbison's voice, and that his upcoming solo comeback, Mystery Girl, was a genuinely exciting prospect rather than nostalgia for its own sake.

It's impossible now to hear "Not Alone Any More" without the context of what came two months after Vol. 1's release. Orbison never got to make another record with this band, and hearing the song now is hard to separate from that. It's the fullest showcase he ever got on this album, and it turned out to be the only one. Read more about Roy Orbison's remarkable, bittersweet arc here.

Previous track: Last Night. Next track: Congratulations. Or see the full Vol. 1 tracklist.