It’s easy to think that Ringo Starr landed the most incredible gig in the world upon joining The Beatles. While he never claimed to be an accomplished songwriter on the same level as John Lennon or Paul McCartney, Starr could lay down a solid groove throughout every Beatles classic, often playing around with the initial groove and turning the track into something entirely different. Although Starr was never looking to be a songwriter in the band’s early days, he ultimately helped shape two of their most iconic tracks.
For the first few years that he tried to write, though, Starr would ultimately get laughed out of the room half the time. Even though he had always had ideas for what a track could sound like in his head, it would usually end up sounding like he had ripped off someone else, with most of his bandmates pointing out that Ringo had unconsciously commandeered another artist’s melody.
Then again, it never mattered, so long as Lennon and McCartney kept writing iconic tracks, creating massive singles like ‘She Loves You’ by pulling melodies out of thin air. While the band indulged in a few of their favourite covers on records, their third record would be the first time they featured all original material on their album.
Making the album for a tie-in movie, Starr inadvertently came up with the title for ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ after the band worked into the night. Starr would recall the whole thing happening without thinking, recalling, “We went to do a job, and we’d worked all day, and we happened to work all night. I came up still thinking it was day, I suppose, and I said, ‘It’s been a hard day…’ and I looked around and saw it was dark, so I said, ‘…night!’ So we came to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’”.
Although Starr would be counted on for his technical foul-ups when he spoke, the turn of phrase captured the band’s touring life perfectly, with Lennon eventually writing the song about working like a dog every day. As the band expanded their musical horizons, though, Starr would eventually be the inspiration behind a much heavier tune.
Not caring about whether that could recreate their sonic experiments live anymore, the band would eventually make a sonic leap forward on Revolver, featuring songs no rock band had touched before, like ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘I’m Only Sleeping’. While Lennon had a song tentatively titled ‘The Void’, the band’s major exploration of psychedelia would also be named by Starr.
Despite the lyrics being taken from various Eastern teachings regarding LSD, Lennon thought that the throwaway title would help soften the blow for listeners, saying, “That’s me in my Tibetan Book of the Dead period. I took one of Ringo’s malapropisms as the title, to sort of take the edge off the heavy philosophical lyrics”.
While Starr’s contributions may not have come in royalties, both songs were pivotal turning points in the band’s career. ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ may been about them celebrating the joys of living on the road, but ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was the warning from the band to their fans about the new sonic adventures they would be getting up to in their later years.
