It was never hard to get mini-Beatles reunions going across the years. Even though all four former members were never in the same room again after their dissolution in 1970, different pairings and groupings were quite frequently seen together either socially or for musical purposes. The crux of that continued friendship was Ringo Starr, who maintained a relationship with all three of his former bandmates after The Beatles imploded.
Throughout most of his solo albums, Starr would get material from Paul McCartney, John Lennon, and George Harrison. Sometimes it was among his best work, like the Starr-Harrison collaboration ‘Photograph’, and sometimes it was clearly half-baked, like Lennon’s ‘Cookin’ (In the Kitchen of Love)’ from Ringo’s Rotogravure. But in any case, Starr was more than happy to return the favour by appearing on his mates’ albums.
When Paul McCartney was putting together his 1997 album Flaming Pie, a call over to Starr was completely natural. The duo had reunited with Harrison earlier in the decade to take on The Beatles Anthology project, which had re-established Starr and McCartney’s working relationship. According to Starr, when he was invited over to play on the song ‘Beautiful Night’, the answer was easy.
“He invited me to play on ‘Beautiful Night’ and I said ‘Sure’,” Starr told Club Sandwich in 1997. “I think it’s a beautiful track, and while we did that we started jamming. He had a few ideas for a jam, playing his bass. I love to play drums when Paul’s playing bass – he’s such a fine player, still the most melodic.”
During the jam, Starr and McCartney formed the basis for what would eventually become the song ‘Really Love You’, on which Starr gets a songwriting credit. “We were just jamming and he was shouting these words, and it turned into a song,” Starr revealed. “Jeff Lynne was playing a little plunky guitar too – it was just the three of us and it turned out fine, just finding a pattern and playing it – it’s organic, it grows. It was a fun day and I like to hang out with Paul and Linda.”
Unsurprisingly, hanging out and playing music is the main way to get to Starr’s heart. “I still feel really comfortable playing with Paul, yes. We have all that history and it comes into play when we work together. You can’t just dismiss that,” Starr added. “You’re never going to lose the closeness of those eight years we spent together. We played some great music and we were brothers; no matter what goes on up and down, we were very close. I don’t know of any other band who got that close. And we got that close because we loved each other and the pressure that only the Beatles had. No other band has had that much pressure.”
“So all of those factors come into play when we meet each other. We know what went on. Nobody else knows,” Starr said. “Everybody thinks they know, and they have ideas, and they write books about it, but actually only the Beatles know how heavy that was. Paul and I used to work very hard. A lot of it fell into place, but the drummer and the bass player have a foundation to set, for everything else to be able to go on. And as I say, he is the most melodic bass player. He plays melodies within the melodies. He’s like the sea bed, or I’m the sea bed and he’s the bottom water, and everything goes up from there. Like bubbles.”
Check out ‘Beautiful Night’ down below.
