Roy Orbison end to be represented as A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B'-C'-D'-E'-F'. Although Orbison recorded and wrote standard structure songs before "Only the Lonely", he claimed never to have learned how to write them: Elton John's songwriting partner and main lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote that Orbison's songs always made "radical left turns", and k.d. lang declared that good songwriting comes from being constantly surprised, such as how the entirety of "Running Scared" eventually depends on the final note, one word. Some of the musicians who worked with Orbison were confounded by what he asked them to do. The Nashville session guitarist Jerry Kennedy stated, "Roy went
Roy Orbison Jr. vocals. The process he uses was the subject of an episode of the television series "Strange Inheritance" on Fox Business Network, and the track was included on the 25th anniversary re-issue of the album "Mystery Girl". He was also an executive producer of the album "One of the Lonely Ones" in 2015. Orbison is currently the co-president of Still Working Music, which has a catalog of songs from artists including Taylor Swift, Lost Frequencies, and Joe Walsh. Beginning in 2016, Orbison served as a co-produced for the biopic "The Big O: Roy Orbison", written by Ray Gideon and Bruce Evans.