Compared to the other members of The Beatles, it took a bit longer for Ringo Starr to join the band and find his feet within it. As such, there are a lot of songs he didn’t initially play drums on, but surprisingly, this trend continued slightly even after he had fully joined the band. Be it ability, fallouts or temporary quits, there are various reasons Starr didn’t play the drums on some of The Beatles’ biggest hits.
When he initially joined the band and the Fab Four started recording, Ringo was left out of the final version of ‘P.S. I Love You’, given he could not get the tempo quite right. Instead, producer George Martin brought in a session drummer to perfect the rhythm. “The other bloke played the drums and I was given the maracas,” said Starr. At the time, he thought the replacement meant his days in the band were numbered, worried he would go the same way as his predecessor, Pete Best. “I thought, that’s the end. They’re doing a Pete best on me.” That said, Starr is still credited on the record as drummer despite his absence.
Ringo eventually found his feet within the band and became a crucial component of their success, which was fully realised during the recording of ‘Back in the U.S.S.R’. While rehearsing the song, Starr and McCartney ended up arguing over a “fluffed tom-tom fill”, which would see Ringo storm out the studio.
In the drummer’s absence, McCartney stepped in behind the kit, with John Lennon and George Harrison performing some parts too, all of which were layered together to compose the final song. The track came out fine, but the tedious process of filling in for Starr while he wasn’t there highlighted how much the band needed him.
That dependence meant that when Starr temporarily quit the band in 1968, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison wasted no time trying to get him back, putting together a heartfelt letter begging him to return. This all occurred during the recording of The White Album, where the band had to use studio time despite personal grievances. As such, while waiting to see if Ringo would return, the three remaining members recorded ‘Dear Prudence’ without him.
On ‘Martha My Dear’, McCartney decided he wanted to try and test himself, so he took to recording all of the musical parts of the song, aside from the orchestra, himself. This meant he took over drum duties from Ringo, with Lennon and Harrison also not playing on this anomaly from the Beatles discography.
The same thing happened with John Lennon and ‘The Ballad of John and Yoko’, but more out of untameable excitement than a desire to push himself. When he returned from his honeymoon, he was so eager to record that he left two bandmates out of the final process. With Harrison out of the country and Starr working on The Magic Christian, McCartney was left to play the drums.
It’s a good job that the Beatles members were so versatile, as it may have been the case that many of our favourite songs might have never come to fruition if somebody had been unable to step in during Starr’s absences.
