The one Paul McCartney song too good to give to Ringo Starr: “I thought it would suit me better”
In the aftermath of The Beatles’ breakup, Paul McCartney didn’t need to have especially fond memories of his old mates.
He was being painted as the one that wanted to break up the group, and since the rest of the band had chained themselves to Allen Klein, it was easy for him to be blamed for breaking the hearts of fans all over the world. But even at the most strained moments of their career, there’s a chance that none of them could have stayed mad at Ringo Starr for too long.
Although he was far from the most talented member of the band, none of the Fab Four brought the sense of party like Starr could. He may have had his ups and downs in terms of substance abuse back in the day, but whenever you picked up one of his first albums, you were guaranteed at least a few songs that were a good time, whether that was McCartney contributing songs like ‘Six O’Clock’ or putting together 75% of a Beatles reunion when George Harrison and John Lennon wrote ‘I’m the Greatest’.
But even after the death of Lennon and Harrison, Macca still has that same sense of brotherly love with Starr. Not all of their songs needed to have contributions from each other by any means, but whenever you hear McCartney’s voice on a Starr album, you can still sense that subtle bit of camaraderie with every note they sing. Then again, McCartney wasn’t going to be giving anything too good to his old bandmate.
It’s not like Starr was looking for the most well-structured songs in the world, either. Since the last song that he got from Lennon was ‘Cooking in the Kitchen of Love’, it’s safe to say that he wasn’t trying to make lyrical masterpieces, but when McCartney first got an idea for a massive band arrangement during the early 1980s, he knew that there was no way that he could give it away.
Here he was releasing his first proper solo album with Tug of War, and ‘Take It Away’ was going to be a far better single in his hands than in Starr’s, saying, “Well, there were a couple of songs that we ended up recording which Ringo asked me to write at a certain period. I was writing some songs for Ringo and ‘Take It Away’ was in amongst those songs. I thought it would suit me better the way it went into the chorus and stuff; I didn’t think it was very Ringo.”
And given where he had been, McCartney may have been missing these kinds of songs in his material. McCartney II is one of the more interesting entries in his catalogue, but there are more than a few moments that weren’t going to translate to an audience, especially with production as primitive as tunes like ‘Waterfalls’.
Also, with all due respect to Starr, McCartney’s ear for arrangement is miles better than anything he could have come up with. The chorus is already fantastic with some help from Eric Stewart of 10cc, but if you’re not already moving to the actual chorus, the saxophones halfway through the tune is the icing on the cake that had been missing from a lot of the final Wings albums throughout the late 1970s.
Although Starr could have used a little bit of a boost throughout the 1980s, there’s no other artist who could have helped bring this song to life other than McCartney. The drummer may have been all about creating good vibes whenever he played his songs, but this tune only is further proof of why McCartney should be heralded as one of the most well-rounded musicians of his generation.
