The day Paul McCartney made Ringo Starr quit The Beatles: “I was an outsider”
There are countless moments in the history of music where doors seemingly slide open for one timeline while shutting the opportunity for another to exist. It might be when Waylon Jennings offered Buddy Holly his plane ticket home, only for the trip to end in disaster, or when Kurt Cobain fluffed an audition to join The Melvins and subsequently set up his own group. And, naturally, being the most famous band on the planet, The Beatles have more than a few to offer.
One such moment came when the usually entirely affable Ringo Starr lost his cool and temporarily quit The Beatles. The decision came during the recording sessions for The White Album and a particular grilling from Paul McCartney, which pushed him over the edge. Starr wouldn’t be the only person to feel the wrath of McCartney in the studio, but their confrontation stoked something inside the drummer who picked up his sticks and vowed never to return to the Fab Four.
The band’s unique drummer was in the middle of recording for the Chuck Berry-inspired song ‘Back In The U.S.S.R.’ when things came to a head. The tempestuous confrontation saw Ringo leave the studios, promising never to return. While the percussionist would find his way back to the band, it was one of the first signs that the band was headed for the rocks.
By 1968, the talent of The Beatles was widely known. The group had become a pop behemoth and scored countless number ones as well as receiving critical acclaim. With John Lennon and Paul McCartney as the principal songwriters and singers of the band, the duo dominated the spotlight. However, over the last few years, George Harrison had begun to emerge from their shadow.
Sadly, Ringo still felt left out in the cold. This, plus a continued barrage of orders from the notoriously meticulous Paul McCartney about a tom-tom fill, eventually pushed Starr into quitting the band before finally returning after a spell on actor Peter Sellers’ yacht. The recording sessions started off well though, “While we were recording the ‘White’ album we ended up being more of a band again,” remembered Ringo in Anthology “and that’s what I always love. I love being in a band. Of course, I must have moments of turmoil, because I left the group for a while that summer.”
In truth, while McCartney’s nature must have grated on the drummer, with the bassist often showing Starr off his stool to play the beats he wanted, the issues stemmed from a diminished self-esteem. The drummer continued: “I left because I felt two things: I felt I wasn’t playing great, and I also felt that the other three were really happy and I was an outsider.”
It was the beginning of a protracted split, especially after Lennon confirmed he had been feeling a similar way. “I went to see John, who had been living in my apartment in Montagu Square with Yoko since he moved out of Kenwood. I said, ‘I’m leaving the group because I’m not playing well and I feel unloved and out of it, and you three are really close.’ And John said, ‘I thought it was you three!’”
“So then I went over to Paul’s and knocked on his door. I said the same thing: ‘I’m leaving the band. I feel you three guys are really close and I’m out of it.’ And Paul said, ‘I thought it was you three!’” It seems as though the group was already beginning to isolate itself. “I didn’t even bother going to George then. I said, ‘I’m going on holiday.’ I took the kids and we went to Sardinia.”
It was a notion that producer George Martin picked up, “I think they were all feeling a little paranoid. When you have a rift between people – if you go to a party and the husband and wife have been having a row – there’s a tension, an atmosphere. And you wonder whether you are making things worse by being there. I think that was the kind of situation we found with Ringo. He was probably feeling a little bit odd because of the mental strangeness with John and Yoko and Paul, and none of them having quite the buddiness they used to have. He might have said to himself, ‘Am I the cause?’”
It was in Sardinia, while staying on Peter Sellers’ yacht, that he wrote ‘Octopus’ Garden’ alongside the actor, “I stayed out on deck with him and we talked about octopuses. He told me that they hang out in their caves and they go around the seabed finding shiny stones and tin cans bottles to put in front of their cave like a garden. I thought this was fabulous because at the time I just wanted to be under the sea too. A couple of tokes later with the guitar – and we had ‘Octopus’s Garden’!”
Ringo would return to the band, and they would continue to write some of their most poignant and beloved work, proving that while the return may have been fairly swift, it was worth going back for. Ringo’s departure was the signal for the end of The Beatles. The pressures of stardom had made such a well-loved character feel isolated and alone. Soon, the Fab Four would be out on their own.
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