Roy Orbison - A Love So Beautiful [Album Version]Details

"Me and Roy wrote A Love So Beautiful, actually on this table with that Casio, the Casio and the guitar. Which was amazing. That came real quick. Took ten minutes to write that song and the words took about... the words took even longer. It's lovely. That was the idea [for it to be a classic Roy Orbison song], really. Y'know, I never wanted to make him something he wasn't. To make that sort of... like a Roy Orbison record, it was like... You gotta try and make it like an old one, but you can't, um, copy it or anything and you've gotta sort of... sort of reinvent an old sound. You know what I mean? And that's the hardest bit of it really, is to get the sound almost-- I mean it's never quite as good as the original Roy Orbison records because they were all played at once, you know, like an orchesra, rhythm section, and his singing and background vocalists all going 'wallup' at the same time. How they did it, I don't know. It just amazes me how they played all that stuff together because it's just brilliant. When you get in the studio with him, and he'll just do a run through, he won't sing very loud. He'll just go, 'do-de-do-de-do.' And then he'll say, 'Okay, I'll take it.' And see... Make sure everything's working because it's Roy Orbison and it's-- He is really on a pedestal, y'know. And he strikes up and it just... does your brain in, y'know. 'Cause there it is, Roy Orbison recording and he's doing it right there, right this moment. And, uh, when he started singing, it was the second take, A Love So Beautiful, it was the second take. His first run through, he just sort of hummed it out. He said, 'Okay, I'm ready.' And he struck up it was just like one of those... just goosebumps all over you, you know, one of them things. Amazing. And I was panicking, like making sure it was all going on tape okay, it wasn't like overloading, it was all at the right levels. It was a real... 'Cause something when we sing it, it doesn't matter if you mess it up, 'cause-- 'Ah, did you get that bit? Oh, well, I'll sing it again.' But this is like a gem, like a... on tape. It's just amazing. Different thing, altogether."
Jeff Lynne (circa early 1989 - Saturday Sequence BBC Radio 1 interview by Roger Scott)
Editor's Note: It is assumed that "this table and that Casio" refer to a location in Jeff Lynne's home in England, where the interview was assumed to have been recorded.

"Two other tracks on Side One, namely A Love So Beautiful and California Blue, were co-written and produced by Jeff, with strings conducted by Louis Clark, marking their first collaboration since Secret Messages. Not that the intervening period has made much different, both songs are good ballads in the classic Big O style, but (particularly the latter) are somewhat marred by Louis' slapdash session-man approach to arranging of late; it's easy to see why Jeff as increasingly reluctant to use strings from Xanadu on."
John Van Der Kiste with contributions by Andrew Whiteside (1989 - Face The Music fanzine #6)

"Jeff: '...then me and Roy wrote A Love So Beautiful, actually with a casio and a guitar. That came really quick. It took about ten minutes to write the tune.' [...] 1989... the first collaboration of Louis Clark and Jeff Lynne since E.L.O.'s break up in 1986 on Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl album, when Louis arranged the strings on two of the Jeff-produced songs A Love So Beautiful and California Blue."
Patrik Guttenbacher, Marc Haines, & Alexander von Petersdorff (1996 - Unexpected Messages)

"Fellow Wilbury [George] Harrison is credited as playing guitar on A Love So Beautiful from the [Mystery Girl] album."
Kristofer Engelhardt (1998 - Beatles Undercover)

"[1989: George] played acoustic guitar on A Love So Beautiful, a track from Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl album..."
Bill Harry (2003 - The George Harrison Encyclopedia)

"We went to the studio, here in Los Angeles. [Jeff] called and it was Roy, Roy Jr. and myself and we went to listen to the songs. And the first one that Jeff played for Roy was A Love So Beautiful. And it was so amazing for Jeff to play the song for Roy. And Jeff... You know, Roy, Kelton and I, we were just, you know, in the background, and Roy listening to what Jeff had done to the song, and he just started crying. And we had never seen that. I mean, I had been married to Roy for twenty years and, you know, I mean Roy Jr. had been in many studios with him and to see that emotion in Roy. And then Jeff looking and Jeff not knowing, I mean, what to do with Roy just sitting there and having tears roll down his face. Then the good part came, thank God. You Got It is uptempo. [Laughs] And then we got out of the tears. But it was just so incredible to see, you know, Roy always finding-- he probably listened to something that just totally surprised him that he didn't think Jeff could add to the song."
Barbara Orbison (Summer 2012 - Mr Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne and ELO documentary)

"Soon all the boys went to Friar Park to record the rest of [the Traveling Wilbury's] album. After hours (when normal people slept) Jeff Lynne constructed A Love So Beautiful which Roy sang in one pass. Barbara Orbison described all the doors and windows of the house being open and Roy's voice reverberating through the halls of Friar Park as the other Wilburys basked in the sounds of what was now known as the perfect take."
Wesley, Roy and Alex Orbison (May 19, 2014 - liner notes for Mystery Girl expanded edition)

"When he sang A Love So Beautiful, it was just absolutely magnificent."
Jeff Lynne (May 19, 2014 - liner notes for Mystery Girl expanded edition)

Barbara Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Richard Dodd:

"Barbara: Jeff and Roy started working on a song called A Love So Beautiful. And there was a day that all of a sudden we were all sitting around visiting. When Jeff looked at Roy. And Roy looked at Jeff. And they said, [look at watch], 'You think we should do it?' [Laughs] And Roy said, 'Yeah, I think we should.' So we all said, 'What are you talking about?' And they said, 'Well, Roy wants to put a vocal on A Love So Beautiful.' And George [Harrison] said, 'Can we go?' And they looked at one another, Jeff and Roy, and they said, 'No. We'll do it fast. We will be back.'

Jeff: That was one of the songs that I was building up as we finished Wilbury sessions. I would go in with the engineer and work more on Love So Beautiful [sic] and put guitars and keyboard on it, stuff like that.

Barbara: And we went around the outside and stood below where on the first floor was George's studio. 'Cause there were always windows open, it was summertime.

Jeff: When he sang it, it was just... just absolutely magnificent. His voice, I've never heard a voice like that live, you know, actually in the studio, ever.

Barbara: His voice was just floating over it. It felt like Roy was just floating through Friar's Park. Three minutes, and then it stopped. And we just stood there and we said, 'Oh, they're going to do it again.' Nothing.

Jeff: And he went in and did this most unbelievable performance in one take. I think we dropped in one word a bit afterwords, but it was absolutely stupendous. So I said to the engineer, 'Are you getting this down or what, on tape?' And he said, 'I don't know.' [Laughs] I said, 'Course you know.' He said, 'Yes, we know.'

Richard: George and Jeff one day, when making George's album, Cloud Nine, were fantasizing about who would they have, if they could have anybody in a band, who would they have. George picked Bob Dylan. Jeff picked Roy Orbison.

Jeff: Something so special to me, to get him to be singing like that and me favorite singer ever in the world, and there he was, doing it for me.

Richard: Automated mixing with moving faders was in its infancy to some degree. And and at Rumbo Recorders, it was in its original form, which was made by Neve and they were very clumsy, moving faders, and they didn't always do as you told them to do. So Jeff was worried [that] when Roy got to hear this mix live, the faders might mess up, that sort of stuff. So I recall Roy coming in for the first playback of A Love So Beautiful and Jeff is very, very nervous that Roy's going to hate it.

Jeff: It was the most unbelievable thing happened in the studio when I was mixing it.

Richard: Jeff standing at one end of the console and I'm manning the other in of the console just in case something goes wrong. And Roy [was] standing up in the middle of that, listening to the song. And I could see Jeff willing those faders to work right.

Jeff: And after I played A Love So Beautiful and I thought, 'Wow, I hope he likes that.' I'd put strings on it and had a big production. And nobody was saying anything. I was looking at the speakers, you know, so I had to look behind me. and there was Roy, there were tears rolling down his face. And I went, 'Oh, God, he hates it.' [Laughs] No, I didn't. I didn't say that. I only made a joke to ease my... I didn't know what to do with myself. And I said, 'It's not that bad, Roy.' And he said, 'No, man, it's so beautiful, I can't stand it.' [Laughs]

Richard: He gave Jeff a hug and I know that [for] Jeff, that was probably one of the greatest moments of his life, in a musical sense anyway. That was his dream come true.

Jeff: Absolutely made me life, probably."


Barbara Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Richard Dodd (May 19, 2014 - Mystery Girl Unraveled)

"Over the next day or two, they also wrote the songs California Blue and A Love So Beautiful in the same way [on a small Casio keyboard and acoustic guitar]."
John Van der Kiste (August 2015 - Jeff Lynne: Electric Light Orchestra - Before and After)

"Roy Orbison Day was declared in Texas on what would have been Roy's fifty-third birthday, April 23, 1989, while Roy was all over the charts. You Got It, Crying and California Blue were mainstays of rock and country radio, and videos of California Blue and A Love So Beautiful, starring Winona Ryder, were in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1."
Roy Orbison Jr, Wesley Orbison and Alex Orbison with Jeff Slate (October 2017 - The Authorized Roy Orbison)

"Love was lost on the lush A Love So Beautiful and found in You Got It. [...] George was to assist on A Love So Beautiful, one of three Mystery Girl highlights written by Roy and Jeff; two, namely the homesick California Blue and You Got It, were penned with Tom Petty and mixed at Harrison's studio in Henley-on-Thames."
Alan Clayson (2017 - Vintage Rock Presents Roy Orbison Collectors Edition)


  • Running Time: 3:33
  • Record Date: April 1988
  • Record Location: MC Studios (Mike Campbell's garage), Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Written By: Jeff Lynne & Roy Orbison
  • Produced By: Jeff Lynne
  • Engineered By: Richard Dodd, Phil MacDonald and Don Smith
  • Performed By: Roy Orbison (vocals, acoustic guitar, background vocals), Jeff Lynne (acoustic guitar, keyboards, bass, background vocals), George Harrison (acoustic guitar), Ray Cooper (drums), Louis Clark (string conductor)

  • Released On:
    • Mystery Girl LP album (1989 January 30 — UK — Virgin V 2576)
    • Mystery Girl CD album (1989 January 30 — UK — CDV2576)
    • Mystery Girl CD album (1989 February 7 — USA — Virgin Records America V2 91058)
    • Mystery Girl LP album (1989 February 7 — USA — Virgin Records America V1 91058)
    • The Platinum Collection CD album (2004 August 2 — UK — Virgin VTDCDX632)
    • The Essential Roy Orbison CD album (2006 March 28 — USA — Sony 82876816082)
    • The Essential Roy Orbison digital album (2006 March 28 — USA — Sony 884977725438)
    • The Essential Roy Orbison digital album (2006 March 30 — UK — Sony 884977725438)
    • The Very Best Of Roy Orbison CD album (2006 October 16 — UK — Sony/BMG 82876 81276 2)
    • Mystery Girl CD album (2007 October 22 — Europe — Sony BMG Music Entertainment ?88697112032)
    • The Soul Of Rock And Roll CD album (2008 September 30 — USA — Legacy 88697 05537 2)
    • The Soul Of Rock And Roll digital album (2009 February 10 — USA — Legacy 884977045659)
    • The Soul Of Rock And Roll digital album (2009 May 17 — UK — Legacy 888880705372)
    • The Essential 3.0 Roy Orbison CD album (2009 August 25 — USA — Legacy 88697 42581 2)
    • The Soul Of Rock And Roll CD album (2010 November 8 — USA — Legacy 88697 05537 2)
    • Mystery Girl Expanded CD album (2014 May 19 — UK — Sony Music ?)
    • Mystery Girl Deluxe CD/DVD album (2014 May 19 — UK — Sony Music ??)
    • Mystery Girl Expanded CD album (2014 May 19 — UK — Legacy 88843059592)
    • Mystery Girl Deluxe CD/DVD album (2014 May 19 — UK — Legacy 88697607032)
    • Mystery Girl Expanded digital album (2014 May 19 — Worldwide — Legacy 886444525787)
    • Mystery Girl Deluxe digital album (2014 May 19 — Worldwide — Legacy 886444516440)
    • Mystery Girl Deluxe LP album (2014 June 9 — UK — Legacy 88843059601)


  • Cover Versions:
    • Michael Bolton on his Love Songs album (1995)
    • Stachursky on his Stachursky album (2000) [under the title Do Konca moich dni]
    • Andr Hazes on his Vaag en Stil single (2005) [Vaag en Stil is a retitle of the song]
    • Tobias Fr berg on the Under The Covers Roy Orbison tribute album (2009)
    • Joe Goldmark and Dallis Craft on the Blue Steel album (2018)

  • Used in the Film or TV Program: Indecent Proposal (1993)