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It is one of the cruelest ironies that The Big O shuttled off this mortal coil just when his creative star was once again in the ascendant. Following hot on the heels of The Traveling Wilburys' relaxed rock 'n' roll canter, Mystery Girl is Orbison revisiting familiar territory via a set of specially penned tunes by the man himself and a host of admirers/collaboraters that includes half of U2, Elvis Costello, T Bone Burnett, Tom Petty and ELO exile Jeff Lynne.
Mystery Girl is an uneven collection that finds its stylistic unity in a big, airbrushed, but surprisingly beefy sound. The Lynne/Orbison/Petty chart hit, "You Got It" leads the way, the singer's controlled melodrama merging with state of the art production and the thankfully muted string arrangements that tend to creep in whenever our Jeff gets within a mile of the studio console.
Side One's other standouts are a pair of thematically linked songs of the unconscious that revisit, without fully recapturing, the psychodrama of In Dreams. "In The Real World" is a slow burner, the voice raised an octave or three, whilst "(All I Can Do Is) Dream You" shifts gear and ignites into an old fashioned rocker enhanced by the presence of the ever tasteful T Bone.
On the second side things kick off with perhaps the two most interesting/realised cover versions on the album. "She's A Mystery To Me" is a Bono/The Edge song penned especially for Orbison, a prowling, enigmatic fragment of obsessive devotion that hinges on the love as a kind of death premise. The writers have obviously homed in on Orbison's vintage songs from the twilight zone of the heart and their intuitive grasp of this dark undertow pays dividends here.
Likewise Costello's "The Comedians" complete with radically reworked lyrics that push it into Orson Wells territory had he been an observational songwriter rather than a maverick director.
The record finishes on the full blown existential angst of "The Only One" which, in turn, is tempered by the wayward romance of "Careless Heart," Orbison cruising, in full throated throttle through average songs elevated by that voice. The only real blot on the landscape here is the cold lone hero worship of the fatuous "Windsurfer" where Roy's normally impeccable taste is grounded on the rocks of California body worship.
Overall, though, Mystery Girl is a fitting vindication of a talent that matured with age and stayed the course with a dignity and self respect that is all too rare in rock 'n' roll.
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