By the time The Beatles recorded their self-titled record, also known as the White Album, tensions were high. The songwriting partnership between Paul McCartney and John Lennon had broken down throughout the years; members preferred to write individually, and recording sessions were rife with arguments surrounding Yoko Ono. Beatlemania wasn’t wavering on the outside, but behind the scenes, it seemed that a break-up was bubbling.
Though it would be two more years and three more albums before the Fab Four did announce their disbandment, Ringo Starr preempted it when he walked out of the White Album recording sessions. His departure to the Mediterranean may have seemed like a holiday, but it was made with real intent to leave the band, as the drummer no longer felt a sense of belonging in the Beatles.
As Starr recalled in Anthology, he had begun to feel like an outsider in the group. “I had definitely left,” he stated, “I couldn’t take it anymore. There was no magic and the relationships were terrible. I knew we were all in a messed-up stage. It wasn’t just me; the whole thing was going down.”
His statement was certainly correct – The Beatles were entering their “messed-up stage”, the beginning of the end. But Starr’s walk-out long pre-dated their eventual split in 1970. The band had begun recording in May, and by August, the drummer was fed up enough to leave not only the band but the country.
“I went to see John [Lennon], who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko [Ono] since he moved out of Kenwood,” Starr recalled, “I said, ‘I’m leaving the group because I’m not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.’” Though Lennon would echo those same feelings, it wasn’t enough to stop Starr from venturing to Sardinia.
The holiday proved a spark to Starr’s creativity, leading him to write ‘Octopus’s Garden’, but at home, the remaining Beatles were struggling without his percussive contributions. As a result, they wrote a telegram to him that declared him the best rock and roll drummer in the world and adorned his kit with flowers ready for his return.
Though his declaration that he had “definitely left” proved to be an exaggeration, returning just a couple of weeks later in September, it wasn’t long before the cracks led to a full-on split. Barely a year later, Lennon had shared his intentions to leave the band, and in 1970, McCartney announced his departure. Starr had only predicted and preempted the inevitable.
