The songwriting credit goes officially to all members of the band, but the song is published by Bob Dylan's Special Rider Music label, indicating that the main writer is Dylan, who is also the lead singer on the record. This is partially contradicted by George Harrison's account of the song in the 2007 documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys:
"Tweeter and the Monkey Man" was really [written by] Tom Petty and Bob [Dylan]. Well, Jeff [Lynne] and I were there too, but we were just sitting there around in the kitchen, and he was for some reason talking about all this stuff that didn't make much sense to me, you know, it was that Americana kinda stuff and we got a tape cassette and put it on and then transcribed everything they were saying.[2] Harrison also recalled that he and Lynne then contributed the chorus, beginning with the line "And the walls came down", based on an idea of Dylan's from the same tape(Wikipedia)
