Ten From the Beatles: The Best of Ringo
He was the one who in 1963 was better known than and more professionally accomplished than the three guys who asked him to join them. He was the guy who would always be the most amiable and universally likeable in the group. He was the oldest and the shortest. He was the Beatle who got a nice long solo scene in their big screen debut and ended up having a marginally successful film career. He was the dude who married *A BOND GIRL* ok?
It has at times been fashionable to downplay Ringo Starr’s role in the Beatles, even to consider him “the luck one” who was “along for the ride.” Some have even gone so far as to believe (and repeat) a patently false story that Lennon claimed Ringo “wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” And no, Bernard Purdie did NOT re-record the drums on a bunch of Beatles tracks. “The Hitmaker” may certainly be a legend, but those claims are asinine.
Viewing Ringo in this way displays woeful musical ignorance and fails to understand the reverence with which he has been viewed by his peers for nearly sixty years. To celebrate the perfect drummer for the greatest band in the world, I present some of my favorite Ringo performances.
I won’t include “Ticket to Ride” despite its legendary drum pattern because it was Paul who came up with the idea and I want to stick to Ringo’s direct input wherever possible. I’ll also omit “Tomorrow Never Knows” because it owes more to the engineering and sound of the drums than anything else (make no mistake they do sound great).
And though it doesn’t get its own entry here, it would be a crime not to at least mention “She Loves You,” even if only for the way he kicks off the song. Ringo sets the tone in one second for what might be the finest pop single ever released, and the rest of the track epitomizes the Beatlemania drum sound.
There are others I’ve probably missed too, but without any further delay let’s get to another Ten From the Beatles: The Best of Ringo
Thank You Girl
This early flip side to “From Me to You” won’t be confused for a great composition, hence its relegation to the B-side. McCartney called it, “a bit of a hack song, but good practice,” tipping his hat to some of the things that nevertheless make the track noteworthy. It was a true collaboration between John and Paul. It was addressed specifically to fans to create instant appeal. It was upbeat and catchy. Its “OH… OH!” hook and Paul’s exciting falsetto on “all I gotta DOOOO!” give it approachable excitement. At the same time, the lyric is banal and Lennon was right when he said years later, “it was just a silly song we knocked off.” (though props for the internal rhyme of “eternally” and “always be”) What we have here from Ringo is very much a Keith Moon starter kit. Stay with me on that. No, he doesn’t attack the drums for the entire piece like Moonie did, but he does give a powerful pounding on the toms preceding the “OH… OH!” sections during John’s harmonica. (Be sure to check out the mono 2009 mix for the best sounding version of the song). But it is during the ending (between the last two “Oh… Oh!” sections) where you get the goods. Ringo lets loose a barrage of fills that demonstrates a truth about this era of Beatles lore: at this point, he was the most accomplished, professional player in the group. Those kinds of fills are precisely the sort of thing Moon would later do with the Who, though he would keep it up for the entirety of a track rather than just a couple of fills. So there you go. A Keith Moon starter kit for those few seconds at the end of “Thank You Girl.”
Tell Me Why
Just listen to what Ringo does with this Lennon song to get a true feel for what he adds to the band. The way he compliments the guitars in the into, the way he fills in the gaps in the chorus, and particularly the way he brings them out of the bridge – that’s a microcosm of what made him great. He elevates the song to another level with his playing, and this is a perfect example of the excitement he brings to a recording. Really good drummers play the song, and really great drummers make the song better without overshadowing it. His playing here shows why Ringo Starr belongs in the “really great” category.
I Feel Fine
A swinging “Ray Charles” feel, the Ringo specialty that made the others know he was the only drummer for them, provides the excitement on this Lennon A-side. The guitar riff is good enough, the singing is great as always, and the intro feedback is cool, but the lyrics are not up to the group’s standard and the song is weaker than it sounds on first listen. But go back and focus on the “What I’d Say” drumming. Ringo plays like a man possessed, a contribution much greater than the song deserves, really. The drummer made a fair track into a great track, something I am sure wasn’t lost on Lennon, who reportedly said upon bringing it into the studio, “I’ve written a song, but it’s lousy.” And while that may be a bit harsh, it is not far from the truth. At least not until Ringo got involved.
Rain
When making a list of the best of Ringo, one must certainly include what he felt to be his best performance. Of “Rain,” said he: “I think I just played amazing. I was into the snare and the hi-hat. I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat. I think it’s the best out of all the records I ever made.” As good as his playing is on the track, it was the group’s experimental nature of the time that truly elevates the sound of the drums on the song. The whole recording is slowed down from the recorded speed, giving John’s vocal the ethereal effect he desired, but also serving to give the drum sound an added depth. Add to that Paul’s phenomenal bass playing, and you’ve got one of the group’s finest all-around tracks.
She Said She Said
It is of course ludicrous that anyone claims Ringo was not a great drummer. I’d offer up this as a case in point. It is the guitars that will get all the attention due to their large, distorted presence, and John and George are great to be sure. But a close listen reveals something odd about “She Said She Said” – there is no sign of the presence of Paul McCartney on the track. You can’t hear his voice (George is quite evident), and that bass playing is certainly not from McCartney – it is rudimentary at best throughout most of the track. It is therefore Ringo who is really providing the feel for the whole song through some innovative rhythmic patterns in the verses, and who also is keeping John on track through that bizarre bridge section (“she said you don’t understand what I said, I said no no no you’re wrong, when I was a boy…”) by keeping it steady while the rule-breaking Lennon changes time signatures and crams words in where they have no business being. There’s a time and place for letting loose (the verse) and a time and place for sitting back and keeping things under control (the bridge), and Ringo’s instincts here are spot on. Another excellent performance.
With a Little Help From My Friends
Ringo has never shied away from telling how he spent the bulk of his time during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper: playing cards or chess. In fact, his relative lack of involvement led him to later claim they began “playing as a group again,” on the White Album, the record many would cite as the “beginning of the end.” Regardless, when it came time for him to step up and do his part on, he gave one hundred percent and ultimately his presence on the seminal Summer of Love recording was critical. His playing is superb throughout (three tracks make this list), but if there is a perfect Ringo moment in the Beatles’ catalog, “With a Little Help from my Friends” is unquestionably it. No doubt a large part of that can be credited to the material he had to work with – John and Paul crafted the perfect song for him, and he delivers it in typical self-effacing style. Can you imagine anyone else in the group singing, “what would you think if I sang out of tune?” or perhaps even sillier, the loneliness of “I just want someone to love.” It is the reason that, as good as Joe Cocker’s version is, it still doesn’t compare to the original – Cocker sings as though he is leading his friends around, while Ringo is truly relying on them. And even though there’s a common line of thought that says the drummer was just the lucky guy along for the ride, making this song about as literal as it could be, that fails to consider how important Ringo was from day one to the way the Beatles sounded. There are a lot of great Ringo moments, but this is the best, and he offered just as much to his friends as they did to him.
Good Morning Good Morning
On an album full of outlandish tracks this Lennon composition might be the wildest of all, at least from a strictly musical standpoint. The chugging saxes blast through the speakers on the heels of the rooster’s crow that signals “good morning!” but this is no peaceful wakeup call. The Beatles repeat the title phrase five times (weird) and Ringo enters with a fantastic crescendo of snare pounding that is the very antithesis of every song previously written about the dawn of the day. That same snare, tuned tight and no doubt with his signature tea towel dampening its thud, is the backbone of two and a half minutes of barely controlled chaos. As John changes the meter repeatedly, again cramming words into spaces they shouldn’t fit, the horns wail away, and George lets loose a frenetic solo, Ringo keeps the whole thing from falling apart. The word most people use to describe Ringo is “steady,” but that doesn’t do his playing justice, especially here. He holds this song together, yes, but he does so while pounding mostly on his snare and forsaking the high-hat entirely save for the first bridge section (“everybody knows there’s nothing doing, everything is closed it’s like a ruin…”). I don’t hear it (high-hat) on the second bridge (“people running ‘round…”). If it is there, it is buried so deeply in the mix as to disappear. In fact, the only other cymbals readily audible at all are on the crashes at the end of each line. Again, this is not “Oh what a beautiful morning” – more like a bucket of ice water to the face. I keep coming back to the word “chaos” to describe “Good Morning Good Morning,” and I think that is probably the point, but Ringo is brilliant and provides a bedrock for what otherwise might be so wild as to be terrifying. (To really get a good feel for it, check out Giles Martin’s 2017 remix, which gives the instruments a little more room to breathe while maintaining the spirit of the original).
A Day in the Life
The day Ringo recorded the drums for “A Day in the Life” was THE day in his life for my money. His playing on the verses is absolutely gorgeous. He uses his kit to add color and shading to the Sgt. Pepper magnum opus that once again perfectly provides just what the song needed. He manages to add to the tragedy of the lyric by reinforcing each line with a series of accents and fills perfectly suited to John’s singing. In the hands of a lesser player, this song could have been ruined. Ringo is truly magnificent on the track many have said is the band’s very best.
Come Together
Lennon’s eerie “shoot me!” breaks the silence as the needle hits the first track on Abbey Road and the bass enters as the lead instrument. Simultaneously, Ringo does “it.” He plays something unlike anyone else has ever created on a drum kit for a song. Perhaps his unique sound often was just as simple as being “a left-handed player on a right handed kit,” resulting in his fills going “the wrong way around” as he has often said, but there’s got to be more to it in this case. This use of the drums is not so much percussive as it is playing them as an instrument. Add to that unique intro pattern the timpani-like pounding of the toms during the verse (an incredible sound), and you are well into the song before the snare ever makes an appearance (on the chorus, and when it does it is a punch to the gut). It is one of the best tracks the group ever recorded, and Ringo is a big reason why, maybe THE big reason why. Don’t believe me? Listen to anyone else who has covered that song. It just ain’t the same. No one can replicate what he did on that track, no matter how they try. It is his and his alone.
Octopus’s Garden
With its straightforward I-vi-IV-V construction and “son of Submarine” lyrics, Ringo’s turn on Abbey Road finds an escapist utopia in an odd place: the ocean floor. Having been told the octopus will collect stones, shells and shiny objects to create rock gardens “on the sea bed,” Ringo found the idea a calm among the storm of the “Get Back” project and offered up this song (you can see him and George working on it in the “Let it Be” film – it really should be credited Harrison-Starkey, but George rarely saw fit to do that even when it is clearly evident he played a major role [see “It Don’t Come Easy”]). It’s not the drumming performance to notice here, nor the vehicle he created for George’s superb solo. It’s the place the song occupies on one of the greatest pop albums ever created. George’s two finest compositions, John’s rocking genius, and Paul’s melodic ingenuity sit alongside a song about an octopus – and I can’t image the record without it! I dare you not to smile while it is playing.
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
I don’t know that there’s anything too out of the ordinary about Ringo’s drumming on this track, I just like it. Especially the Latin feel of the verses. This is not a great song, but it is a fantastic recording and I love everything about it. Especially the drumming and especially during the guitar verse.
Early 1970
If you’ve never heard this solo track, go look it up and enjoy it. I love “I’m the Greatest” and “Photograph” and “It Don’t Come Easy,” but “Early 1970” is my favorite Ringo song. Bring along a small amount of understanding about him and relationship to the others when you listen and you will find a guaranteed smile. This is the Ringo everyone loves.
OK fine, that’s twelve entries not ten. Sue me.
#fabfour
#beatles
It has at times been fashionable to downplay Ringo Starr’s role in the Beatles, even to consider him “the luck one” who was “along for the ride.” Some have even gone so far as to believe (and repeat) a patently false story that Lennon claimed Ringo “wasn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.” And no, Bernard Purdie did NOT re-record the drums on a bunch of Beatles tracks. “The Hitmaker” may certainly be a legend, but those claims are asinine.
Viewing Ringo in this way displays woeful musical ignorance and fails to understand the reverence with which he has been viewed by his peers for nearly sixty years. To celebrate the perfect drummer for the greatest band in the world, I present some of my favorite Ringo performances.
I won’t include “Ticket to Ride” despite its legendary drum pattern because it was Paul who came up with the idea and I want to stick to Ringo’s direct input wherever possible. I’ll also omit “Tomorrow Never Knows” because it owes more to the engineering and sound of the drums than anything else (make no mistake they do sound great).
And though it doesn’t get its own entry here, it would be a crime not to at least mention “She Loves You,” even if only for the way he kicks off the song. Ringo sets the tone in one second for what might be the finest pop single ever released, and the rest of the track epitomizes the Beatlemania drum sound.
There are others I’ve probably missed too, but without any further delay let’s get to another Ten From the Beatles: The Best of Ringo
Thank You Girl
This early flip side to “From Me to You” won’t be confused for a great composition, hence its relegation to the B-side. McCartney called it, “a bit of a hack song, but good practice,” tipping his hat to some of the things that nevertheless make the track noteworthy. It was a true collaboration between John and Paul. It was addressed specifically to fans to create instant appeal. It was upbeat and catchy. Its “OH… OH!” hook and Paul’s exciting falsetto on “all I gotta DOOOO!” give it approachable excitement. At the same time, the lyric is banal and Lennon was right when he said years later, “it was just a silly song we knocked off.” (though props for the internal rhyme of “eternally” and “always be”) What we have here from Ringo is very much a Keith Moon starter kit. Stay with me on that. No, he doesn’t attack the drums for the entire piece like Moonie did, but he does give a powerful pounding on the toms preceding the “OH… OH!” sections during John’s harmonica. (Be sure to check out the mono 2009 mix for the best sounding version of the song). But it is during the ending (between the last two “Oh… Oh!” sections) where you get the goods. Ringo lets loose a barrage of fills that demonstrates a truth about this era of Beatles lore: at this point, he was the most accomplished, professional player in the group. Those kinds of fills are precisely the sort of thing Moon would later do with the Who, though he would keep it up for the entirety of a track rather than just a couple of fills. So there you go. A Keith Moon starter kit for those few seconds at the end of “Thank You Girl.”
Tell Me Why
Just listen to what Ringo does with this Lennon song to get a true feel for what he adds to the band. The way he compliments the guitars in the into, the way he fills in the gaps in the chorus, and particularly the way he brings them out of the bridge – that’s a microcosm of what made him great. He elevates the song to another level with his playing, and this is a perfect example of the excitement he brings to a recording. Really good drummers play the song, and really great drummers make the song better without overshadowing it. His playing here shows why Ringo Starr belongs in the “really great” category.
I Feel Fine
A swinging “Ray Charles” feel, the Ringo specialty that made the others know he was the only drummer for them, provides the excitement on this Lennon A-side. The guitar riff is good enough, the singing is great as always, and the intro feedback is cool, but the lyrics are not up to the group’s standard and the song is weaker than it sounds on first listen. But go back and focus on the “What I’d Say” drumming. Ringo plays like a man possessed, a contribution much greater than the song deserves, really. The drummer made a fair track into a great track, something I am sure wasn’t lost on Lennon, who reportedly said upon bringing it into the studio, “I’ve written a song, but it’s lousy.” And while that may be a bit harsh, it is not far from the truth. At least not until Ringo got involved.
Rain
When making a list of the best of Ringo, one must certainly include what he felt to be his best performance. Of “Rain,” said he: “I think I just played amazing. I was into the snare and the hi-hat. I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat. I think it’s the best out of all the records I ever made.” As good as his playing is on the track, it was the group’s experimental nature of the time that truly elevates the sound of the drums on the song. The whole recording is slowed down from the recorded speed, giving John’s vocal the ethereal effect he desired, but also serving to give the drum sound an added depth. Add to that Paul’s phenomenal bass playing, and you’ve got one of the group’s finest all-around tracks.
She Said She Said
It is of course ludicrous that anyone claims Ringo was not a great drummer. I’d offer up this as a case in point. It is the guitars that will get all the attention due to their large, distorted presence, and John and George are great to be sure. But a close listen reveals something odd about “She Said She Said” – there is no sign of the presence of Paul McCartney on the track. You can’t hear his voice (George is quite evident), and that bass playing is certainly not from McCartney – it is rudimentary at best throughout most of the track. It is therefore Ringo who is really providing the feel for the whole song through some innovative rhythmic patterns in the verses, and who also is keeping John on track through that bizarre bridge section (“she said you don’t understand what I said, I said no no no you’re wrong, when I was a boy…”) by keeping it steady while the rule-breaking Lennon changes time signatures and crams words in where they have no business being. There’s a time and place for letting loose (the verse) and a time and place for sitting back and keeping things under control (the bridge), and Ringo’s instincts here are spot on. Another excellent performance.
With a Little Help From My Friends
Ringo has never shied away from telling how he spent the bulk of his time during the sessions for Sgt. Pepper: playing cards or chess. In fact, his relative lack of involvement led him to later claim they began “playing as a group again,” on the White Album, the record many would cite as the “beginning of the end.” Regardless, when it came time for him to step up and do his part on, he gave one hundred percent and ultimately his presence on the seminal Summer of Love recording was critical. His playing is superb throughout (three tracks make this list), but if there is a perfect Ringo moment in the Beatles’ catalog, “With a Little Help from my Friends” is unquestionably it. No doubt a large part of that can be credited to the material he had to work with – John and Paul crafted the perfect song for him, and he delivers it in typical self-effacing style. Can you imagine anyone else in the group singing, “what would you think if I sang out of tune?” or perhaps even sillier, the loneliness of “I just want someone to love.” It is the reason that, as good as Joe Cocker’s version is, it still doesn’t compare to the original – Cocker sings as though he is leading his friends around, while Ringo is truly relying on them. And even though there’s a common line of thought that says the drummer was just the lucky guy along for the ride, making this song about as literal as it could be, that fails to consider how important Ringo was from day one to the way the Beatles sounded. There are a lot of great Ringo moments, but this is the best, and he offered just as much to his friends as they did to him.
Good Morning Good Morning
On an album full of outlandish tracks this Lennon composition might be the wildest of all, at least from a strictly musical standpoint. The chugging saxes blast through the speakers on the heels of the rooster’s crow that signals “good morning!” but this is no peaceful wakeup call. The Beatles repeat the title phrase five times (weird) and Ringo enters with a fantastic crescendo of snare pounding that is the very antithesis of every song previously written about the dawn of the day. That same snare, tuned tight and no doubt with his signature tea towel dampening its thud, is the backbone of two and a half minutes of barely controlled chaos. As John changes the meter repeatedly, again cramming words into spaces they shouldn’t fit, the horns wail away, and George lets loose a frenetic solo, Ringo keeps the whole thing from falling apart. The word most people use to describe Ringo is “steady,” but that doesn’t do his playing justice, especially here. He holds this song together, yes, but he does so while pounding mostly on his snare and forsaking the high-hat entirely save for the first bridge section (“everybody knows there’s nothing doing, everything is closed it’s like a ruin…”). I don’t hear it (high-hat) on the second bridge (“people running ‘round…”). If it is there, it is buried so deeply in the mix as to disappear. In fact, the only other cymbals readily audible at all are on the crashes at the end of each line. Again, this is not “Oh what a beautiful morning” – more like a bucket of ice water to the face. I keep coming back to the word “chaos” to describe “Good Morning Good Morning,” and I think that is probably the point, but Ringo is brilliant and provides a bedrock for what otherwise might be so wild as to be terrifying. (To really get a good feel for it, check out Giles Martin’s 2017 remix, which gives the instruments a little more room to breathe while maintaining the spirit of the original).
A Day in the Life
The day Ringo recorded the drums for “A Day in the Life” was THE day in his life for my money. His playing on the verses is absolutely gorgeous. He uses his kit to add color and shading to the Sgt. Pepper magnum opus that once again perfectly provides just what the song needed. He manages to add to the tragedy of the lyric by reinforcing each line with a series of accents and fills perfectly suited to John’s singing. In the hands of a lesser player, this song could have been ruined. Ringo is truly magnificent on the track many have said is the band’s very best.
Come Together
Lennon’s eerie “shoot me!” breaks the silence as the needle hits the first track on Abbey Road and the bass enters as the lead instrument. Simultaneously, Ringo does “it.” He plays something unlike anyone else has ever created on a drum kit for a song. Perhaps his unique sound often was just as simple as being “a left-handed player on a right handed kit,” resulting in his fills going “the wrong way around” as he has often said, but there’s got to be more to it in this case. This use of the drums is not so much percussive as it is playing them as an instrument. Add to that unique intro pattern the timpani-like pounding of the toms during the verse (an incredible sound), and you are well into the song before the snare ever makes an appearance (on the chorus, and when it does it is a punch to the gut). It is one of the best tracks the group ever recorded, and Ringo is a big reason why, maybe THE big reason why. Don’t believe me? Listen to anyone else who has covered that song. It just ain’t the same. No one can replicate what he did on that track, no matter how they try. It is his and his alone.
Octopus’s Garden
With its straightforward I-vi-IV-V construction and “son of Submarine” lyrics, Ringo’s turn on Abbey Road finds an escapist utopia in an odd place: the ocean floor. Having been told the octopus will collect stones, shells and shiny objects to create rock gardens “on the sea bed,” Ringo found the idea a calm among the storm of the “Get Back” project and offered up this song (you can see him and George working on it in the “Let it Be” film – it really should be credited Harrison-Starkey, but George rarely saw fit to do that even when it is clearly evident he played a major role [see “It Don’t Come Easy”]). It’s not the drumming performance to notice here, nor the vehicle he created for George’s superb solo. It’s the place the song occupies on one of the greatest pop albums ever created. George’s two finest compositions, John’s rocking genius, and Paul’s melodic ingenuity sit alongside a song about an octopus – and I can’t image the record without it! I dare you not to smile while it is playing.
I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
I don’t know that there’s anything too out of the ordinary about Ringo’s drumming on this track, I just like it. Especially the Latin feel of the verses. This is not a great song, but it is a fantastic recording and I love everything about it. Especially the drumming and especially during the guitar verse.
Early 1970
If you’ve never heard this solo track, go look it up and enjoy it. I love “I’m the Greatest” and “Photograph” and “It Don’t Come Easy,” but “Early 1970” is my favorite Ringo song. Bring along a small amount of understanding about him and relationship to the others when you listen and you will find a guaranteed smile. This is the Ringo everyone loves.
OK fine, that’s twelve entries not ten. Sue me.
#fabfour
#beatles
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
©2015-2020 Joshua V. Best
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