Handle with Care

About This Lesson

In today’s lesson I’ll teach you how to play Handle with Care, the 1988 hit from supergroup The Traveling Wilburys (Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne). This is quite the fun song to play, as it features a catchy walk-down riff and several uses of pushed chord changes — giving things an interesting rhyhmic feel. I’ll walk you through the main riff step by step, talk about strumming, and give you a handful of other tips to help you pull this one off. Enjoy!

• 0:00 Playthrough
• 1:43 Intro: Chord Shapes
• 3:26 Intro: Rhythm & Counting
• 4:49 Intro: with Strumming
• 6:14 Intro: with Accent Notes
• 7:34 Verse
• 12:35 Pre-Chorus
• 14:57 Chorus

Quick Links

• Lyric & chords
• Song Wikipedia page

Practice Notes 2 pages

Lesson Discussion

Bonus Videos

Here’s a few extra videos, made in thanks to those supporting me with Premium membership here on my Song Notes website. To those showing your support, you have my true thanks and appreciation — and I hope you find these additional videos helpful!

Zoomed Playthrough - With Singing

Here’s a video of me playing through each section slowly, with tabs on screen. I’m zoomed in the whole time, and I’m also singing for context. As many of you have stated, I’m including this singing so you can hear & reference exactly where the lyrics occur relative to each riff that’s played.

Zoomed Playthrough - No Singing

In this video I likewise play each section of the song, zoomed-in with tabs on screen, but without singing. This will help you more clearly hear exactly what I’m playing in each section.

Other Lessons to Help With This Song

Here’s a recent lesson I made where I teach a few strummy walk-downs in the Key of G. This includes the exact same walk-down used in the intro & verse to this song — which is in fact used in many other songs as well! If you want to spend more time with it, check this out:

The chorus to this song is a great place to use percussive strumming, which you can hear me do in my playthrough. Hint: you’ll want to add the percussive slap on the backbeat, which is the 2 and 4 counts.

When editing this video, I noticed you can see my pick almost sticking to my thumb — allowing my index finger to briefly lose contact with the pick. If you’re curious how this is happening, check out this video — where I talk about (1) the type of pick I use, and (2) how to go about strumming with a light touch.

When I teach the intro riff, during step #4 I talk about picking individual strings while still keeping your strumming hand moving. Here’s a video I made talking about that exact technique — in case you need some guidance!

Lastly, we have the diminished chord I mention in the pre-chorus. If you’re curious about the chord formula guide I breifly show on screen, here’s a link to that lesson and PDF cheat sheet!

Recorded Versions of Handle with Care

Here’s the official recording from the Traveling Wilburys:

And a 2002 live version performed by Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison during a tribute to George Harrison.

Finally, here’s a personal favorite cover of mine, featuring Jenny Lewis and M. Ward: