RINGO STARR

Wrack My Brain

written and produced by George Harrison

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I’m making this page on July 7th, 2021, the 81st birthday of

Sir Richard Starkey, also known as the Beatle behind the drums,

also known as Ringo Starr. Happy Birthday, RS!!

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Like his Fab Four counterparts, Ringo was born and brought up in

Liverpool. He lived in the inner cities and contracted a number of diseases in his single-digits and teens alone. He missed school and lagged behind his peers intellectually for a while. Ringo’s stepfather gave him a used drum kit for his 18th Christmas that was a bit primitive, but taught him basic rhythm and percussion skills. Two years later, Ringo joined and started playing with Al Caldwell and the Hurricanes, who needed percussion to elevate themselves to true rock and roll band status—as The Beatles were coming into form, already composed of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Ringo played drums and recorded with them for the first time in 1960.

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Between then and summer 1962, The Beatles featured Pete Best on drums. Ringo left the Hurricanes in 1962, on the invitation of John to join The Beatles. The boys were less than satisfied with Pete’s work and wanted Ringo in their corner. In August, Ringo accepted the offer, and the rest—of the ’60s—is history. The dispute that led to their breakup arose in 1970, and the Four went their separate ways. Ringo released a string of semi-successful solo albums through the ’70s, which were a bit overshadowed by his former colleagues’ own efforts. The first half of the decade treated Ringo’s singles well, the latter half not quite as much. For many years, Ringo was the only Beatle from whom I knew no solo hits. A (pretty humorous) book I bought about ’80s songs and memorable lyrics therefrom focused on The Beatles on one page, proclaiming that while all four of them had top 40 ’80s hits, only three had #1s. Which one didn’t? (Hint: George’s were “All Those Years Ago” and “Got My Mind Set On You,” John’s were “(Just Like) Starting Over” and “Woman,” and Paul’s were... numerous.)

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This book gives us a line from one solo song of each Beatle, including “Starting Over” by John, “Mind/ Set” by George and “No More Lonely Nights” by Paul. Of course, the ’80s choices for Mr. Lennon are very limited... and we know why. Ringo and his then-girlfriend/now-wife Barbara Bach experienced a car wreck in Surrey, May 1980 (clearly, ’80 was a bad year for The Beatles), but they survived. The year after, Ringo released his eighth album, Stop And Smell The Roses, which contained the song to which this book introduced me, and which I’m covering on this page: “Wrack My Brain.” You can certainly hear some British and Beatle influence in there. The song indeed cracked the top 40 where it charted: #38 US, #32 Belgium and #10 Switzerland. This number was written and produced by George, as a couple others on the record were written and produced by Paul. So demonstrably, the old rifts between the lads were able to be resolved for future collaboration.

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Along with Paul, Ringo remains one of two surviving Beatles to the time of this writing, as we said goodbye to George in fall 2001. Which to me begs the question: are he and John now singing “My Sweet Lord” to the actual lord?

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(P.S. Why the first label laid over the video spells “Wrack” without the ‘W,’ I couldn’t tell you. Maybe Ringo wasn’t the only one who missed some school classes.)

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full version

music video

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Ringo’s official website