After a terrific run of singles in the early 1960s—“Only The Lonely,” “Crying,” “Oh, Pretty Woman,” and “In Dreams” among them—Roy Orbison’s career had sunk into the doldrums by the mid-’80s. Orbison’s previous album Laminar Flow had come out in 1979 and sunk like a stone. Still, as the decade progressed things began to look up again: in 1986 David Lynch memorably featured “In Dreams” in his cult-favorite movie Blue Velvet, and the next year Orbison was enthusiastically inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame by none other than Bruce Springsteen, who then joined a host of rock luminaries to support Orbison for the filmed performance Roy Orbison And Friends: A Black And White Night, broadcast on Cinemax and then released on video.
Thus primed for a comeback, Orbison connected with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra fame, then in the midst of producing another comeback album for a ’60s icon, George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, which would turn out to be the trigger for the creation of Traveling Wilburys, the uber-supergroup featuring Orbison, Harrison, Lynne, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. But let’s step over that rabbithole for the moment and continue.
While Orbison chose to employ multiple producers for Mystery Girl, the three tracks Lynne ended up producing and co-writing included the album’s leadoff track and superb hit single “You Got It.” The remaining tracks were variously produced by Mike Campbell (of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers), T-Bone Burnett and Bono. The thing is, you can hardly tell the difference, because Orbison’s remarkable voice—all silvery, haunted vibrato, punctuated at key moments by a piercing falsetto—is right where it should be, front and center on every track. It surely doesn’t hurt that he’s supported by an A-list cast of players that included Benmont Tench and Howie Epstein of the Heartbreakers, Wilburys drummer Jim Keltner, Steve Cropper, and Al Kooper, not to mention Petty and Harrison.
“You Got It” kicks things off beautifully, Lynne’s trademark shimmery acoustic rhythm guitars driving a tune with so many hooks it makes me want to go fishing (and I don’t fish). Any one of the following—the strategically placed strings, Lynne’s propulsive electric lead, or the resounding bass drum double-tap they use to announce the chorus—would be enough to grab your attention; put them all together with Orbison’s soaring, ecstatic lead vocal and it’s simply irresistible ear candy. If that wasn’t enough, the song also perfectly mirrors and amplifies Orbison’s career-long musical persona of the shy and vulnerable dreamer who’d do anything for his girl.
Dreams are the focus of the next two tunes, the lush, gentle ballad “In The Real World” (co-produced by Campbell, Orbison, and Orbison’s wife Barbara) and the bouncy rockabilly number “(All I Can Do Is) Dream You” (produced by T-Bone Burnett). Lynne returns for the luminous mid-tempo “A Love So Beautiful” (a Lynne-Orbison co-write with Harrison guesting) and the pulsing, Wilbury-esque “California Blue” (an Orbison-Lynne-Petty co-write with Petty and Campbell guesting).
The album’s second high point arrives with the Bono-produced, Bono and The Edge-written, Tench-arranged “She’s A Mystery To Me,” an airy, haunting tune that manages to meld Orbison’s intimate balladry with U2’s stadium-sized musical ambitions. When Orbison shifts on a dime from singing low on “She’s a mystery to me” to way up high on the next line “She’s a mystery girl,” with isolated strategic-strike piano notes behind him, it’s goosebumps every time.
And really, what could you possibly follow that with, but… an Elvis Costello cover? Orbison and producer T-Bone Burnett slow the verses of “The Comedians” all the way down and frame Orbison’s deliberate reading of the song with spare instrumentation right up until he puts the vocal hammer down on the choruses, counter-pointed by a string section. (My guess at Costello’s reaction on hearing it: “Well that’s f**king brilliant, innit?”)
Campbell and Orbison co-produce the final three tunes here. “The Only One,” co-written by Orbison’s son Wesley, feels tailor-made for Dad’s voice, a rumbly old-school r&b tune featuring Cropper, Epstein, Tench and Keltner, with the Memphis Horns playing an arrangement by Cropper. For “Windsurfer” they bring in Jimmy Buffett’s musical director Mike Utley to wrangle the string section and together nail a beachy-fantasia vibe. Closer “Careless Heart,” an Orbison-Diane Warren co-write, features the Heartbreakers and Keltner and sounds just like that implies, a somewhat formulaic mid-tempo number that’s elevated by sharp playing and Orbison’s superb lead vocal.
In early December 1988, having completed work on both Mystery Girl and Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, and riding high on his comeback’s still-gathering momentum, an exhilarated but exhausted 52-year-old Orbison took a few days off at home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where on the evening of December 6, he had a heart attack and died. Mystery Girl was released less than two months later, with lead single “You Got It” rocketing to the Top Ten in both the US and the UK. On April 8, 1989 Orbison “became the first deceased musician since Elvis Presley to have two albums in the US Top Five at the same time, with Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 at number 4 and his own Mystery Girl at number 5.”
Mystery Girl became the crowning achievement in a remarkable career, an album that’s worth seeking out just for “You Got It” and “She’s A Mystery To Me,” but has much more to offer.