"Handle with Care" is a song by the British-American supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. It was released in October 1988 as their debut single and as the opening track of their album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. The song was the first recording made by the group, although it was originally intended as a bonus track on a European single by George Harrison. When he and Jeff Lynne presented the song to Harrison's record company, the executives insisted it was too good for that purpose, a decision that resulted in the formation of the Wilburys. The song was written primarily by Harrison, although, as with all the tracks on Vol. 1, the writing credit lists all five members of the band: Harrison, Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.
"Handle with Care" was the Wilburys' most successful single. It peaked at number 39 on the Cashbox Top 100 and 45 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, number 2 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and number 21 on the UK Singles Chart, and was a top-five hit in Australia and New Zealand. Directed by David Leland, the video for the song was an MTV favourite in the late 1980s.
Petty and his band the Heartbreakers often performed "Handle with Care" in concert. Lynne sang it with them at the Concert for George, a year after Harrison's death in November 2001. Harrison's son Dhani Harrison sang lead on the song with Jeff Lynne's ELO during their 2019 US tour.
Background
thumb|left|Bob Dylan's house at [[Point Dume (viewed from the north-west on Zuma Beach) in Malibu was the location for the song's recording and the first meeting for what became the Traveling Wilburys.]]
"Handle with Care" came about through Warner Bros. Records, which distributed George Harrison's Dark Horse record label, pressing Harrison for an extra track for the European release of his "This Is Love" single. Having arrived in Los Angeles in April 1988, Harrison discussed the request over dinner with Jeff Lynne, his co-producer on the Cloud Nine album, and Roy Orbison, whose album Mystery Girl Lynne was producing at the time. Lynne agreed to help him record the track the following day, and Harrison invited Orbison to attend the session, after Orbison had said he "would like to come along and watch". Lynne helped Harrison complete the music for the song when they arrived at Dylan's house; according to Petty, Harrison had the chord sequence "pretty much" completed beforehand. In another contemporary interview, Harrison recalled that he had the opening line, "Been beat-up and battered around", but otherwise, the lyrics were the result of a group effort. Harrison asked Dylan, who had been tending a barbecue for the musicians, to "Give us some lyrics, you famous lyricist." When Dylan asked for a title for the song, Harrison looked around the garage and said, "Handle with Care", after a label on a box.
All five musicians assisted in writing the song's lyrics, and sang and played acoustic guitars on the basic track. Harrison said that, having already planned Orbison's segment, he decided to include portions sung by Dylan, Lynne and Petty. In music journalist Matthew Greenwald's description, the composition is "built around a descending, folk-rock chord pattern and some ... major-key chorus movements". He identifies the song's message as being "about getting out from under the shell of the '60s fallout, along with a strong theme of survival".
The released recording includes Harrison's electric guitar riff, played on a Rickenbacker 12-string, and slide guitar solos, and Dylan on harmonica. The electric and bass guitars were added to the basic track on the day after the session at Dylan's house, and drummer Ian Wallace overdubbed tom-toms. According to Petty and Bottrell, Lynne played drums on the track and added a cowbell.