Saturday Morning CarTune: Dirty World

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This morning’s CarTune is “Dirty World” from the 1988 debut album by the semi-fictional super group, The Traveling Wilburys. 

 

For those who aren’t old enough to remember, or simply forgot, the Wilburys were:

+   George Harrison — Nelson Wilbury

+   Bob Dylan — Lucky Wilbury

+   Tom Petty — Charlie T. WIlbury

+   Roy Orbison — Lefty Wilbury

+   Jeff Lynne — Otis Wilbury

…the gag being that the five Wilburys were half-brothers, the sons of five different mothers and one father, a well-traveled blues musician named Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr.

Thus united, the group recorded two albums, The Traveling Wilburys Volume 1 and The Traveling Wilburys Volume 3  (another gag), though tragically, Orbison passed away before the second record was produced. But while it ran, the 1988-1990 project recharged the creative juices of Dylan and Harrison and introduced a whole new generation of listeners to the gifted Orbison, rock and roll’s royal tenor.

The automotive-themed lyrics of “Dirty World”—profane and silly at the same time—were reportedly inspired by a stack of car magazines that Harrison, a devoted car buff and F1 fan, left sitting on a table. The Autocar and Autosport back copies were passed around the room, generating ridiculous double entendres like “wax job,” “electric dumplings,”  and “parts and services.”

Or so the story goes. It’s a dirty world, such a dirty, dirty world. So here’s the band’s official 1988 video.

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http://youtu.be/7CRAn9qMXbw

 

6 thoughts on “Saturday Morning CarTune: Dirty World”

    • Me too. There’s no guarantee that when five of your favourite artists get together you will like the result. However, the first album is, to my mind, flawless, not one bum track. Later videos are moving, with Roy Orbison represented by an empty rocking chair, gently rocking…

  2. A little known fact is that bluesman Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr. was also known as Charles “Blind Mellon” Chitlin.

    • A similarly little-known fact is that although each son had a different mother, they were all sisters, five of the fourteen Boondock girls, of no fixed abode.

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