Mystery Girl
Mystery Girl is the twenty-second album by American singer Roy Orbison. It was his last album to be recorded during his lifetime, as he completed the album in November 1988, a month before his death at the age of 52, and it was released posthumously by Virgin Records on January 31, 1989.[2] It includes the hit singles "You Got It", which was co-written by Orbison and his Traveling Wilburys bandmates Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, and "She's a Mystery to Me", written by Bono and The Edge. The album was a critical and commercial success; it peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200 in the United States, the highest position Orbison had achieved on that chart, and number 2 on the UK Albums Chart.[3]
For other uses, see Mystery Girl (disambiguation).Mystery Girl
January 31, 1989
July 1987 – November 1988
38:17
Mystery Girl was Orbison's first album of all-new material since 1979 and its success posthumously continued the resurgence that his career had undergone since 1986. Among the many other contributors to the album were Mike Campbell and other members of the Heartbreakers, T Bone Burnett, George Harrison, Jim Keltner and Rick Vito. For the 25th anniversary of its release, the album was reissued with bonus tracks including "The Way Is Love", a song recorded by Orbison on a cassette tape in the 1980s that was subsequently completed by his sons and producer John Carter Cash.
Recording[edit]
Before making Mystery Girl, Roy Orbison's last album of new material had been 1979's Laminar Flow. This release followed a run of commercial and critical failures in the United States since his years of international stardom in the early 1960s.[4] From 1986,[5] support from admirers such as filmmaker David Lynch and Bruce Springsteen reversed this trend, rescuing him from relative obscurity in his homeland as Orbison again became a popular concert draw.[6] According to The Authorized Roy Orbison, recordings for Mystery Girl began in July 1987 at Ocean Way Studios in Hollywood with the track "(All I Can Do is) Dream You".[7] Jeff Lynne, another long-time admirer, began writing songs with Orbison in Los Angeles over Christmas 1987. The track "You Got It" was written at this time and was a collaboration between Lynne, Orbison and Tom Petty. With Lynne as his producer, Orbison recorded "You Got It" in April 1988 at the garage studio of Petty's bandmate in the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell.[8]
Recording for the album continued alongside Orbison's involvement in the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup project initiated by George Harrison and Lynne[9][10] that also included Petty and Bob Dylan.[11] Aside from further Lynne-produced sessions for Mystery Girl, to which Petty and Harrison contributed,[12] Orbison recorded some of the songs with Campbell, T Bone Burnett and his wife Barbara Orbison[5] each in the role of producer.[13] The Heartbreakers played on much of the album,[14] while Elvis Costello contributed the song "The Comedians".[5]
The album was named after the chorus from the track "She's a Mystery to Me", which was written by U2's Bono and The Edge. In the documentary In Dreams: The Roy Orbison Story, Bono says he woke up for a concert soundcheck, following a late night listening to the soundtrack to Lynch's Blue Velvet, and had the tune of the title song in his head, figuring it was another Orbison song ("In Dreams" was the only Orbison song on that album). During the soundcheck, he performed "She's a Mystery to Me" for the other members of U2, who agreed that it sounded like an Orbison song. Orbison later met the band backstage at one of their concerts and subsequently asked Bono if he would like to write a song either with or for him.
Recording for the album was completed in November 1988. Having maintained a busy schedule of concert performances, Orbison told Johnny Cash at this time that he was experiencing chest pains and would need to do something about his health.[15] On December 6, two days after performing a show in Highland Heights, Ohio, Orbison died of a heart attack, at the age of 52.[16]