The Ringo Starr song that told Paul McCartney and The Beatles to “back off”
If there is one vision of The Beatles that makes us feel all warm and fuzzy, then it has to be that of the perenially affable Ringo Starr beaming a smile that would make a cream-laden cat feel comparatively mopey. The drummer, often cruelly acting as the butt of Fab Four jokes, was a man that commanded adoration and purveyed a sense of welcoming comfort for friend and fan alike.
Having once famously tasked himself with responding with handwritten letters to all of his masses of fan mail, Starr took on the role of the band’s most precious personality. John Lennon was full of acerbic wit, George Harrison was as capable of a temper tantrum as a guitar-wielding toddler, and Paul McCartney always served up his fearsome fury inside a delicate ditty. Starr, therefore, seemed to be the hapless chap capable of little else but a uniquely crooked smile. But that doesn’t mean the musician didn’t have a sharper side.
More often thought of as the cuddly side of the band, considering Lennon’s cold artistic integrity, McCartney’s dedication to the craft, and the scything wit of Harrison, Starr’s claws came out on more than a few occasions. Of course, there was the moment he quit The Beatles, only rejoining the group after a holiday with famed actor Peter Sellers, producing his famous song ‘Octopus Garden’. But perhaps his fiercest moment came after the group had already split.
The Fab Four quickly drew their lines in the sand when The Beatles broke up. Lennon and McCartney were seemingly at war almost instantly while Harrison seemed to saddle up alongside the bespectacled Beatle as they joined together to write barbed songs about Macca. Starr, however, appeared to not really give himself over to the tabloid rivalries and, instead, concentrated on his own work. It saw him become one of the more prosperous members of the band.
There aren’t many moments during the Beatles’ breakup when Starr puts on his boxing gloves and goes to war. More often than not, his songs were tinged with the idea of reconciliation. One such track, ‘Early 1970’, has always been seen as one of Ringo’s best, but, in truth, we couldn’t really call it a song where the drummer threw shade at his bandmates or tried to continue the battle that had engulfed him and his friends since they broke up.
The truth is, with ‘Early 1970’, Ringo was always aiming to bring them together. The drummer was acting as a musical peacemaker and trying to show that what bound the group together was more important than what tore them apart. However, on ‘Back Off Boogaloo’, released in 1972 and often thought of as one his finest solo efforts, he let it all hang out and sent out some severe shots for his former bandmates, including one man in particular.
While the band was all happy to throw razor-sharp barbs at one another, one man bore the material’s brunt. Lennon, Harrison, and Ringo all used their solo albums to take shots at McCartney. The creative leader of the band before they broke up, the bassist was often cited as the cause of their break-up. While that may not be true (all band members had left the group at one time or another before Macca made a more decisive call), he was certainly a focal point for their issues. Having taken on a more predominant role in the Fab Four as a leader of their creative vision during 1967, over the following years, as Lennon returned his focus to songwriting and Harrison became more adamant about his own contributions, McCartney was enemy number one.
Starr used this one to again aim at Paul McCartney, this time using the song to show his displeasure at McCartney’s recordings. Once again, there would be one band member that Ringo could rely on for some sonic support — his Beatles bandmate, George Harrison.
With Harrison on the guitar, providing some of his more inspiring post-Beatles work, Ringo calls McCartney a “meathead” and goes further by singing: “Get yourself together now and give me something tasty / Everything you try to do / You know it sure sounds wasted”. In truth, if you were in the know, Ringo’s song title said all you needed to know. ‘Boogaloo’ was the drummer’s nickname for McCartney, and the message was clear from the off.
Of course, the two men would settle their differences and have shared the stage on plenty of occasions since. As they witnessed the loss of the other members of the band, the two men reconnected and found common ground. There could be a good argument to suggest that the drummer exorcised his issues the right way and that this is the only way an artist knows how.
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