Ringo Starr never claimed to have the greatest voice in the world. As much as people loved his personality in The Beatles, he would have gladly been happy to sit behind the drums and take cheap shots at himself being out of key rather than have to carry the band through every single show. It’s hard to be the lesser of the Fab Four whenever it came time to sing, but one of his most tender performances on The White Album was something that he came to resent after a while.
Given how much the band didn’t like each other during the making of the record, we should count ourselves lucky that we even got any Starr songs at all on the album. The entire process saw John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison turning into solo artists right before our eyes, which left Starr as the humble session drummer half the time trying to hold everything together.
For an odyssey of songs that’s as long as most feature films, how the hell are you supposed to end things? Sure, ‘Revolution 9’ may have been a fun experiment for Lennon to work with, but leaving everything on that note would have left the entire audience disoriented right as they were finishing up.
As a substitute, Lennon wrote ‘Good Night’ as a nice way to end everything. Even by The Beatles’ gorgeous standards, this is the kind of ballad that most Disney composers wish they could have written, featuring Starr as the main vocalist behind an orchestra as he brings everything to a close.
In fact, Lennon was supposed to take the lead vocal and even went so far as to do one pass through the piece, but Starr’s version of the track does the job just as well. Regardless of his impressive voice, Starr claimed that he had to earn some of his credibility as a rock star back after that song.
When talking to Rolling Stone, Starr thought that it was far too sappy for him to be singing, saying, “I blame that band. I used to be a rock singer, and they’d always give me those soppy songs. And so they ruined my whole career!” Granted, that form of “ruining” his career is probably something Starr is still thankful for every single day.
Looking through his solo catalogue, some of Starr’s greatest songs come when he sticks to his lower register or plays the occasional ballad. Despite being far more comfortable behind his drumkit, hearing him out front on albums like Sentimental Journey is actually a nice diversion from the charming drummer who was only known for the more lighthearted works in the band’s repertoire.
Even though his voice works perfectly well when fronting songs like ‘Boys’ and ‘Act Naturally’, hearing him play the good-natured uncle role as he sings about lulling the listener down to sleep is actually the perfect way to end the album. The Beatles were still spiralling behind the scenes, and it was bound to get even more ugly as the years went on, but they could still put a nice bow on the end of one of their greatest albums.
