Ringo Starr reveals the one lyric he found too sad to sing on his new album: “I wouldn’t sing it”
Ringo Starr has revealed the “saddest line” on his new album, Long Long Road, which he refused to sing.
In a new interview with People, Starr was asked about the inherent sorrow in a handful of the lyrics on his new album, which was released on April 24th. Specifically, the interviewer highlighted the fifth song on the project, ‘Why’.
The song includes the tragic lyrics, “Why do we lie? Why do we cry?” before featuring the repetitive hook, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
The song was written by Starr’s long-time collaborator, T Bone Burnett. The pair also worked together on Starr’s previous release, 2025’s Look Up.
Starr revealed that ‘Why’ original contained an even sadder lyric: “One of the saddest lines was ‘Why do we die?” I wouldn’t sing it!” He confessed.
The former Beatle added, “I made it “Why can’t we fly” and then sent it back to him! But that’s country, isn’t it? Like, you’re in the bar, the wife’s left, the dog’s dead and you don’t have any change for the jukebox. I got into [the genre] with Hank Williams and all those people. There was a sad aspect to country music.”
Despite his latest foray into the world of country, Starr is sure to stay close to his roots. His first-ever duet with Paul McCartney is set to arrive on McCartney’s forthcoming album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, on May 29th.
Reflecting on the song in a recent interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Starr promised, “It’s really great, and it’s amusing, it’s very real because that’s where it comes from.”
Starr’s latest album, Long Long Road, received a happy three-and-a-half-star review from Far Out, which observed: “Contrary to popular belief, Ringo isn’t exclusively a human peace-sign meme at this stage of his life. It has indeed been a ‘long, long road,’ and the thing worth celebrating is that an 85-year-old man with all the money in the world still enjoys that old-timey Americana music enough to make more of it.”
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